Michael JECKS - The Abbot's Gibbet

“Yes, and the other will look good on you,” Jeanne said.

Margaret laughed. She had convinced the man that dealing with the bailiff of Lydford’s wife was potentially good for his business, and he had initially scrambled to show her the choicest materials he had, but his enthusiasm for the talk had waned when he realized that her aim was to win the best cloth for the price of the cheapest. “It’s not my fault,” she said. “I was raised as a farmer’s daughter, and we were taught to bargain and save as much money as we could. My mother would have been horrified to see me throwing away good money just because I couldn’t be bothered to haggle a bit.”

“If she was like my uncle’s wife in Burgundy, she’d be just as shocked to see you spending so much on a few choice materials.”

Margaret ignored the tone of mild reproof, her interest fired by the comment. “Your aunt and uncle raised you?”

“Yes, after my parents died, they took me with them.”

“It must have been a great adventure to go so far,” Margaret said, with a trace of jealousy. The furthest she had travelled was to Tiverton.

“Not for a girl of only three years. I had no idea what my home was like, I hardly remembered the house, and within a short space I had forgotten what my mother looked like.”

“Surely not!”

Jeanne glanced at her, hearing the note of disbelief. Too late she remembered that Margaret had a daughter, and gave an apologetic grimace. “I’m sure if I’d been a little older I would have been able to recall her face, but I was very young to lose both parents.”

“Of course. But tell me, wasn’t your uncle sad to see you marry someone who lived so far from him? It must have been an awful wrench for you to have lost two families when you married.”

Jeanne surveyed a stall of hats. “Not really, no. Having lost my parents, I did not much mind losing an uncle. And he didn’t miss me. As far as he was concerned, I was a constant drain on his purse, and little more. It can only have been a relief to him when I left. He’d invested a lot of money making sure I was well turned out, and primed in etiquette and the proper manners for my station in life. When I was snapped up by Ralph de Liddinstone, I think uncle saw that as proof of success in some way: he’d got rid of an expensive member of his household. It was the same as if he’d sold off one of his more useless serfs to a buyer for a reasonable sum.”

There was a note of sadness, of accepting a miserable position with equanimity, and Margaret suddenly felt she had an insight into the woman’s life. Margaret had always been loved, from the day she was born by her parents, and latterly by the man she had wed and their daughter; Jeanne had never known such all-devouring love. She had been unwanted as a child, but her uncle had accepted her when she was thrust upon him, and when he could, he had disposed of her as quickly as possible, to a man who apparently had not loved her, but had instead treated her like any other possession, something to be thrashed when recalcitrant.

It made Margaret push her arm through the other’s in a sympathetic gesture, and though Jeanne looked quite surprised, she was obviously grateful as well.

They were still linked arm-in-arm when they came across a small group of actors in a miracle play, and both stopped as if by mutual agreement to watch.

The story was so badly acted that Margaret was not sure what it was about. At one point she felt that it might be about the Last Judgment, but it was hard to be sure, partly because she had never been educated, but also because she found her attention wandering during sermons – that was when her daughter began to lose interest in proceedings, searching around for something to do, and she made it hard to concentrate.

Jeanne was unimpressed by the play, but someone in the crowd caught her attention.

It was a man, probably only in his early twenties, who stood with his son at the edge of the audience. All the time the actors were speaking their lines, he pointed to them, explaining what was happening, and when his son complained of not being able to see enough, he caught the child up and sat him on his shoulders.

Unbidden, the thought came to her mind that Baldwin would be as gentle and kindly if he were a father. It made her give a quick smile.

There was no point in giving the harriers a scent of Antonio’s or Pietro’s clothing; they would be on horseback, and the chance of a hound catching a whiff of the men was remote. Instead, the dogs were given an old saddle-blanket from Antonio’s stable – one which had been worn by his horse. The berner was dubious, thinking that his harriers might confuse the beast with another horse, but it was the best they could do. When the hounds had all snuffed the blanket, the berner shouldered a large leather bag and mounted. The hunt moved off into the street.

The traffic had been so great that the hounds could not discern the trail, and Simon glanced at Baldwin. “If they went to the moor we’ll have time to find them later. I would suggest either the road to Brentor or the coast. Surely they would try to escape by one of those routes?”

“I think so. We’ll head to Plymstock and see what we can find; if nothing, we can double back and test the road to Brentor, and the moors last.”

So saying, Baldwin called to the berner, and the cavalcade set off at a lively canter, the harriers moving like a solid mass. They reminded Baldwin of a swarm of bees; each was individual, but acted as a part of a whole. Tails up and wagging, they gave every appearance of delight at being released from their kennels and having a new quarry to chase.

The road led past the Abbey’s orchards and fishponds, and soon they were out of the town itself. At their left lay the midden reeking with the town’s waste, and townspeople were at its edge, hurling rubbish in and retreating swiftly. The noisome stench wafted over the road, and Simon was amused by the reaction of the riders. Some fell silent, a few covering their faces with their hoods, while others resorted to earthy humor, chortling at the disgust of their companions. Simon himself disliked the smell, but was used to it; Baldwin, he saw, curled his lip in disgust – the knight was from the country, and this putrefying stink was never so concentrated where he lived. There human waste was collected in ash to dry and lose its virulence until it could be spread on the fields to help the crops grow.

Baldwin was glad to be past the midden. The country air smelled sweeter beyond it, as if nature had put up an invisible barrier on the distance that man could pollute the atmosphere. Now instead of that malodorous reek, he smelled the fresh-cut grasses in the meadow, the sweet scent of herbs and occasionally the clean fragrance of wild garlic.

They rode on until they had travelled over a mile, and in all that distance the hounds picked up nothing. The berner worked them well and had them circling at either side of the road in case their prey had left it to avoid leaving a trace, but the harriers sniffed for a while, then returned to him, heads cocked on one side in enquiry, tails wagging slowly, and finally Simon had to admit defeat. “Let’s try the Brentor road,” he said.

The berner waved ahead. “There’s a track up there takes us back to Hurdwick. We can pick up the Brentor road there, rather than going all the way back to Tavistock and up.”

Simon nodded, and the berner spurred his horse on, calling to his harriers as he went. The rest of the posse trailed after.

After the events of the last couple of days, Baldwin was relieved to have some physical task to perform. It left his mind free to roam: at first over the things he had heard from the Venetians’ servant, but soon his thoughts turned back to Jeanne.