Michael JECKS - Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

‘Have you seen your dad yet?’ Alan asked.

‘No, he’s up at the manor, in their gaol there. I’ll go and see him later. We’ll need to take him food, I suppose. Alan, we must tell them about the shoe. Otherwise my dad might be hanged, and he had nothing to do with it.’

Alan appeared not to hear him. ‘I talked to that knight this morning.’

Jordan waited expectantly.

‘He seemed quite all right, really,’ Alan continued thoughtfully. ‘Didn’t seem to look down on me just ’cos I’m a villager or anything, but listened to what I thought.‘

Jordan watched as his friend pulled a grass shoot and sucked the sweet, pale end.

‘Maybe we should explain about the shoe,’ Alan murmured.

‘You think we should take it into the manor?’

Alan nodded slowly. ‘I think we should tell him about the priest.’

Hugh gratefully handed his jug to Edgar and walked through to the buttery. There he drew off a large pot of ale for himself and carried it outside for a breather.

The early promise of the bright morning had been false, and now thick white clouds smothered the sky like a blanket over the whole world. Hugh took a deep breath and let it out contentedly. This was his country, for he had been born and brought up on a farm outside Drewsteignton, and he knew the moors and their weather as well as he knew himself and his own moods.

Especially around here, the north-eastern part of the moors, he could recognise the way that the weather was likely to develop. The hill behind the manor led up to another, still more massive, and this one, Cosdon he had been able to see from his father’s farm when he was out with his sling and his staff protecting the family flocks from beasts of all kinds.

It was a comforting scene. At the other side of the yard he saw four or five men, the ones from Thomas’s party. They watched him narrowly as he came out, visibly relaxing as they recognised who he was. Hugh gave them an interested look. They had the appearance of a set of outlaws setting an ambush, but they scarcely took any notice of him, and Hugh sat on a moorstone block, comfortably certain that they were no threat to him. Soon he began to nod.

Inside, Baldwin was still digesting Anney’s words about Brother Stephen’s hatred of children when he once more found himself being addressed. He apologised automatically. ‘I am sincerely sorry, but I was miles away.’

‘So I could see,’ Thomas said, smiling thinly. ‘I thought you looked lonely over here, and decided I would come and make sure you weren’t upset or over-full of wine, eh?’ And with that remark he would have prodded the knight’s belly, had he not caught a glimpse of Baldwin’s expression.

Thomas was feeling more at ease with himself now. He was still unhappy about his sister-in-law’s denunciation in the church, in the midst of all their friends – and before the altar, in Christ’s name! – but that was mere indignation compared with his blind fury at the man who had caused the outburst: the Fleming. However, Nicholas would soon make the slimy git regret his remarks to Lady Katharine, whatever they may have been.

‘Have you heard whether Edmund’s hose were damp?’ Baldwin asked unkindly.

‘No one appears to have seen him that evening,’ Thomas replied warily.

‘No matter. I trust you will shortly be releasing Edmund. It was kind of you to seek me out to tell me,’ Baldwin said distantly, eyeing the pot in Thomas’s hand. The new master of the manor had evidently made himself free with the wine.

‘No trouble, none at all,’ Thomas said, and belched. ‘And you enjoyed your chat to Anney? She’s a good enough woman, I daresay, though her son Alan is an unholy terror.’

‘I have found that if you treat a dog like a wild beast, it will reward your patience by behaving like one.’

‘Eh? Oh, I daresay. But her brat really is a pest. Of course, his mother can’t see it, or won’t. As far as she’s concerned, the sun shines out of his arse.’

Baldwin was annoyed that the man should demean the woman while he was drunk. ‘I found her intelligent and quickwitted, unlike some. If a woman finds little fault with her offspring, that is hardly cause for censure. Especially if she has already lost one boy, as Anney has.’

‘Oh, I see she’s convinced you. She’s a clever spark, I’ll give her that, but as for her lad, he’ll end up on the gallows, you mark my words.’

‘Why do you say so? I spoke to him, and found him sharp, but not villainous, just as I would expect from his mother.’

‘Be careful of what he says to you. If you don’t believe me, ask the priest.’

Baldwin felt his interest stirring again. ‘I saw Stephen talking to you just now,’ he said. ‘Was that something to do with this young Master Alan?’

‘Oh, no. No, he wanted to ask my advice on a private matter, that was all,’ said Thomas, but he could not help looking complacent. It was quite an honour to have been confided in by the priest. He still didn’t like Stephen, but at least the man had confessed, and that made a lot of difference to Thomas. He was the respected master of a big hall now, as Stephen had proved. If a cleric could feel so sure of his integrity that he would dare confess such a thing, then Thomas must be wonderfully important in the eyes of those around him.

To Baldwin’s mind he looked puffed up with his own pride.

‘May I ask what the matter was?’ he enquired, carefully setting his voice at a low, flattering level, as though he was keen to know why Thomas’s advice had been sought instead of his own.

‘It was a matter of some delicacy, I fear, and I couldn’t possibly tell you what it concerned, Sir Baldwin. Under confidence, you understand. Strictest confidence.’

As the man tapped his nose knowingly, Baldwin was tempted to laugh at his blundering stupidity, but managed to keep a straight face. ‘Ah, of course.’

‘But these boys,’ Thomas added solemnly with a grimace and shake of his head, ‘they’re the most unholy nuisances. They shout and run when they shouldn’t, they play practical jokes in the churchyard and carry on as if there were no authority that could hold them.’

‘Ah, yes.’

‘They shoot their damned slings at anything that takes their fancy. Often out poaching, so I’m told. And they fire at people when they want to, knowing they can run off and hide. That’s what… Anyway, they shoot at folks for no reason, just to make them jump or fall from their horse. They have no respect for anyone. I’ll tell you this, if they’re not taught a lesson soon, they’ll be fodder for the gibbet, and nothing more.’

Baldwin wasn’t listening, and missed his lapse. The knight was quite certain that he could never learn anything of any use from the bone-headed Master of Throwleigh, so he merely nodded and made understanding noises while watching the rest of the guests. He could see that Simon and their wives were enjoying a story from Edgar, who had a store of jokes and tales suitable for occasions even as sad as this. Behind them, sitting on her large chair, was Lady Katharine.

The knight watched her for a moment. At her side was the maid Anney, holding her mistress’s drinking vessel, and even as Baldwin watched, she passed it to her lady, hardly glancing at her as she put it into Katharine’s hand. Baldwin was convinced there was a lingering resentment between maid and mistress, but he was not convinced that it could have sparked the fuse that led to the murder.

The mother herself was an enigma. Had Baldwin only seen her reaction at her husband’s funeral, when the woman had recoiled from her own son as if in revulsion, he would have believed her more than capable of hating Herbert enough to kill him. And yet now, having witnessed her despair at the funeral, he found it hard to dispute Simon’s outrage at the suggestion. It was unthinkable that a woman should knowingly murder her own boy.