Michael JECKS - Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

‘That would explain it,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘So then, Godfrey. After witnessing all this excitement, you rode away from the scene with your master.’

‘Yes, sir. We went straight down through the bushes to the Throwleigh road, and came back that way.’

‘What of you, Thomas?’

The sagging figure eyed him bleakly. ‘I went after the sod, I admit, but he escaped. I couldn’t catch him – I never even saw his face.’ He stopped and stared about him, then burst out, ‘You have to believe me, I wouldn’t have killed him! He was my nephew, for God’s sake! I wouldn’t have hurt him.’

Katharine rose shakily to her feet and, without glancing at anyone else, crossed the floor to him. She stood before him, holding his gaze, and suddenly her hand whipped out and struck his cheek. Bunching a fist, she hit him again, and then she flailed at his chest with both hands, and shrieked, ‘You killed him! You murdered my Herbert, my poor, darling Herbert! Murderer!’

Daniel rushed to her side and caught her wrists. Speaking softly and soothingly, he forced her to turn from the ashen Thomas, and led the sobbing woman from the room. A few yards behind them strode Stephen, his face troubled, hands fiddling with his rosary.

Thomas suddenly shouted, ‘Where’s Anney? Get that bitch in here! Get her to tell you what she was doing up there!’

Jordan stood before the imposing gates and stared up, awestruck. If it weren’t for the stoic friend at his side, he would have turned and fled from the place. As it was, his feet felt as if they were rooted to the spot.

It wasn’t only that this gate and the buildings beyond represented power and money, it was also the recent history of his family. The lord of this demesne had been going to evict them from their house; they weren’t only going to lose it, but were claimed to be villeins, too, their freedom gone for ever, and Jordan couldn’t help but feel a qualm at the sight of the studded oak gates which loomed so menacingly above them.

Yet he had his duty to perform. His father was here, in his prison, probably starving, almost certainly beaten for no good reason, just because the Lady hated him and his family. That thought made him swallow nervously, aware that she might order his own punishment, but it also fired a contrary determination to do whatever he must, to suffer beatings or whippings if need be, to get his father released.

Alan took a deep, shuddering breath – proof that he was not quite so bold as he had tried to make out. He felt the peril of the imposing gates as well.

It made Jordan sorry for the older boy. He knew Alan wanted to be the leader in their escapades, and yet here he was, fearful, while Jordan’s own anxiety was leaving him, to be replaced with a wish to get the dreaded interview over and done with.

‘Come on, Alan. We might as well get on with it,’ he said, and took his friend’s free hand, the one that didn’t bear the little parcel.

Edgar found Anney gently bathing Nicholas’s wounds. She agreed to return with him when he said that the bailiff wished to speak to her.

‘Bailiff?’ she asked tentatively, looking about her. Those who met her eye soon glanced away, and she experienced a quickening of her heartbeat. Edgar took her into the hall and led her forward until she was standing before the bailiff and the knight, who studied her in silence a moment. Thomas, who was swiftly becoming drunk, sat on a small stool nearer the fire. Every now and again he lifted his pot and supped noisily, and when the cup was down, his breath snored almost as if he was asleep.

‘Anney, we have heard you were up on the hillside on the day Herbert was murdered,’ Simon said. ‘What were you doing up there?’

‘Who says I was?’

‘Thomas says he saw you there.’

‘Me?’ Anney demanded. ‘What has he accused me of, the devil?’

Her voice was little more than a squeak, and she knew her face must be deathly white. There was no way she could hide her stupefying terror at being examined here, in the room where her husband had been taken from her, the room where her boy’s body had been exposed to the gaze of all those in the village who despised her. This hall had been a place of horror to her for so long, and now it held the threat of the rope. She could almost sense the creaking, swaying gibbet.

She felt a swimming sensation, as though the walls were moving around her. It was so like that time, when she had been called before the old squire, to stand here and be questioned and harassed by officials so that they could formally decide what all knew, that she had been taken in by that ne’er-do-well outside, who had stolen her virginity when he was already wedded to another.

Simon saw her tottering, and hurried over to help her to a bench. ‘Edgar, could you fetch some wine?’

‘No, sir, I’m all right,’ she protested, sitting quietly. ‘I felt a little weak, no more.’ However, Simon passed her the pot when it arrived, and she drank from it thirstily. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Once he had returned to his seat, the bailiff glanced from Thomas to the maid. ‘Thomas says you were also up there on the moors, Anney. Could you tell us what you were doing?’

She lifted her head coolly: her boy needed her. How could Alan survive without a mother? He didn’t even know Nicholas, his father. She met Simon’s serious stare. ‘Yes, sir. I was following the priest.’

Baldwin lifted his head, surprised. ‘Why?’

‘Because I knew he was there to satisfy his lusts.’

Many of the onlookers gasped, and the bailiff and his friend exchanged bewildered glances. Simon blinked and asked, ‘What evidence do you have for this?’ He was relieved that the cleric was not present to hear the accusation.

‘I have the evidence of my eyes, sir. What more do I need? You ask others around here, and see what they say!’ she declared hotly.

Baldwin tried to calm her. Her face had been pallid, but now it shone with a feverish glow, and he wasn’t sure of the strength of her mind. ‘Anney, priests take oaths of chastity, but if Stephen of York failed to maintain the high standard expected, I fear he is not alone…’ he said soothingly.

‘What do you think he’s doing, telling people like me that I’m a sinner, when he can satisfy his every carnal whim, eh?’

Baldwin and his friend had no need to look at each other. Both had the same thought: Anney had admitted a misdemeanour in the confessional, probably to carnal knowledge of the bigamist who had fathered her children, before discovering that the priest was guilty of similar lecherous acts. She wanted revenge on a man she thought was a hypocrite; showing that the priest himself was as guilty as she.

‘What did you see on that day?’ Simon asked.

She stared at him, breathing quickly. ‘I’ll tell you what I saw! I saw Stephen grab my son, and beat him with his stick. Alan was lucky, he twisted out of Stephen’s hand and managed to escape – but what happened then, eh? Stephen tried to catch Alan again, running up the hill and searching through the bushes, until he gave up and went back down to the stream. I was about to return to the manor when I heard this dreadful shout, and suddenly the priest appeared, coming up the slope again towards me. But he didn’t see me, his eyes were fixed on the boy.’

‘Your boy?’ Simon asked in the sudden hush.

‘Oh, no. Alan was too quick for the priest. No, the boy I saw was Herbert. The poor mite was pelting along as fast as he could, up towards me, with his sling in his hand. He’d only been playing a prank, I think, but the joke fell flat. Brother Stephen wanted his revenge, and he took it…’

‘What sort of prank? We must understand exactly what happened,’ Simon said with a trace of weariness.