Michael JECKS - A Moorland Hanging

“Throttled. Then hanged. It’d be easy enough for John Beauscyr to do that.”

“Perhaps. But why would he want to, that’s what I don’t understand.”

“He’s a Beauscyr, isn’t he? Peter had run away from their lands and made them look like fools. John wanted to get rid of the man who had shamed his family.”

“That’s not how the boy thinks, Thomas. No, I find it difficult to believe that would have led him to murder. In the main he seems to enjoy seeing his brother at a disadvantage. I think he liked the runaway getting off the Manor’s lands. At least, until he was shamed by Bruther himself.”

“How was he shamed?”

“The night he died, Bruther insulted John and Sir Ralph on the road, and that caused them to lose face.”

“Yes? Well, I’m sure Peter was provoked.”

“Provoked? When he had a force of men with him?” Baldwin’s eyebrows rose. “You suggest that when two men are confronted by eight the two will try to provoke the others? I do not find that entirely credible, Thomas.”

“Maybe it was unintentional. Knights can be arrogant fools.”

“So can villeins,” the knight observed caustically, and Thomas fell silent, throwing him a nervous glance.

“Any man can,” said Simon pacifically. “It still doesn’t tell us what this is all about,” and he gestured at the armed men nearby.

The miner stared at him. “What this is all about? I’d have thought it was obvious! If the boy killed Peter, I want him to pay for it. My men couldn’t get him, but his brother rode out, so they caught him instead.”

“And what now? What do you intend to do, now that you have captured Sir William’s son? Kill him – or just hold him for your pleasure? Either way, there is a good-sized force led by the knight himself waiting just outside your camp, and he wants his boy back. Are you prepared to see more miners die just because you want to avenge Bruther?”

“Yes! I shall exchange Robert for John, and the whelp will get miner’s justice for what he did.”

The emphatic confirmation made the bailiff and his friend exchange worried looks. Both men wanted to avert what promised to be a bruising and vicious battle. The miners numbered more than the force of forty mounted men-at-arms that Sir William could field, but other guards from the fort were on their way by foot, and if the old knight thought he had the advantage he could attack.

Baldwin leaned forward and met the unflinching, determined eyes of the miner. “This makes no sense. You have lost a man, but that’s hardly a good enough reason to risk the lives of all these others, Thomas. And we do not know that it was John who killed Bruther. Yes, he might have had an opportunity, but we think he was not in the area when Bruther was killed. He was over toward Chagford.”

There was a quick doubt in the miner’s face at that. Baldwin continued softly, “And Robert himself was nowhere near the place. We know that on the words of three people who saw him.” He saw no reason to say that one of the three was Smyth’s own daughter. “He was not involved.”

“So who did kill Peter?”

“We wondered about you, ” admitted Simon frankly.

“Adam Coyt saw you near Bruther’s place that day. What were you doing up there?”

To his surprise, the miner gave him a twisted grin. “Me?” He turned and beckoned to Harang, who stood sharpening a long dagger some feet off, staring up the plain to the group of horsemen. “George, come here a minute. Right, tell these two what you and I were doing on the night that Peter died.”

The thickset man stared at Baldwin and Simon suspiciously. Seeing Thomas Smyth nod, he shrugged. “We were here at the camp for most of the afternoon, checking on the blowing-house and seeing how it was working. When it got late, we left to go and see Peter up at his house. The day before, my master had offered him a job overseeing the smelting. It would make sense having someone here we knew and trusted to look after the ingots. We went to hear his answer, but the place was empty so we rode over to see Sir William at the hall.”

“You must have trusted Bruther to offer him that,” said Simon, pouring more drink. The jug was misshapen, the earthenware cracked and the spout broken, but it was not this that made him spill the fluid. It was the miner’s next words.

“He was my son, bailiff.”

The two men sat back and gaped. Baldwin found himself thinking: So that is why he always called the young man by his Christian name – why did I not realize!

Simon stammered, “But why… Surely you… Why the hell didn’t you tell us!”

“Why the hell should I? Would it have changed the way you investigated his death? What would you have done, bailiff, if he had been your son? The same as me, I would think. I wanted to find out who had done it so that I could meet the killer and treat him the way he served my son. My only son.” He groaned in despair.

“I do not understand, Thomas,” said Baldwin gently.

“You say he was your son, but…?”

He looked at the knight and smiled weakly. “My wife is a decent woman, Sir Baldwin. She has been good to me, and she gave birth to many children for me. But only Alicia survived; all the others died at birth or within a few years. Then poor Christine could not have another, and I learned to be content, because I had Peter.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “His mother was Martha Bruther. She was lovely, widowed young, and I got to know her before I married. I had not even met Christine when I wooed Martha. I wanted her, I wanted her so much I was prepared to marry her, but she wouldn’t have me. She’d tried marriage, she said, and preferred life on her own. Her husband used to beat her and it put her off taking another – she had no need of a man. But she was proud of Peter, our son.” He stopped, staring past Baldwin’s shoulder as the memories came back.

“You could have saved us hours if we had known this before,” Simon said peevishly. “We could have concentrated on the other suspects.” And then he cursed his insensitivity.

“I couldn’t tell you before,” Smyth explained, “not with my wife there. It would have hurt her too much. So I kept it back and tried to help you as far as I could. I didn’t think it mattered.”

“And no more does it now,” said Baldwin compassionately. “But we come back to the main issue: what will you do with Robert Beauscyr? He is innocent, I am sure, and you do not want to hurt the man who could become your son-in-law, do you?”

The miner’s mouth dropped open, but before he could respond, there was a shout, and a man ran up to them, pointing to the plain. “They’re coming! They’re coming!”

Smyth stood and gave Baldwin a brittle smile. “I think Sir William has decided for us. We defend ourselves.”

It was the arrival of the foot-soldiers from Beauscyr that made Sir William decide to attack. His seneschal had rounded up all the men in the demesne as well as the spare guards from the hall, and made them hurry to join their master, all grasping whatever was at hand when the call came. Mattocks, peat shovels, axes and hammers were their meager weapons, and all wore the same fixed and anxious stares, too scared to run off, but fearful of the outcome of the day. If it was a battle to protect their children and wives, they would have fought to the death with stoic determination as their sires had against the French, the Danes and the Normans, but this was not their fight. This was an argument between miners and their master, and they had no wish to leave their families fatherless in another man’s feud.

As they came to the plain, a lookout saw them and rode straight to the knight, who told him to get back and order the men to rest. Sir William would soon lead them into battle.