Michael JECKS - A Moorland Hanging

“It was John Beauscyr.”

The flat answer made Simon sink back exhausted. He had thought that this man might tell him something he did not know, but here was the proof. There was only one other point which mattered. His voice was low and serious as he spoke. “Wat, do you have any idea when this attack happened? Was it dark yet, or was it still light?”

“I don’t know,” said the farmer, baffled at the question. He pushed out his lower lip and frowned with the effort of recollection. “Let’s see. I’d left Chagford in daylight, and I’d only got past Coombe. That would have taken bugger – all time, I suppose…”

“How did you recognize him?” asked Baldwin, shooting a glance at Simon and leaning forward.

“His face, of course.”

“Did you have a lantern?”

“No.”

“Then it was light enough to see, surely?”

Suddenly a great smile broke over the farmer’s face.

“Yes, of course! I was to the west of Meldon Common, and as I passed by, the sun was sinking before me, and I remember thinking it was late – yes, it was just as dusk was coming on.”

“I see,” said the knight. “And it was late when John left the inn, was it not, Simon? I think John could not have murdered Bruther and got here in time to attack Wat.”

Simon nodded dejectedly. “No. It looks like he’s innocent,” he agreed. “But that being so, who was it?”

Baldwin gave him a sympathetic smile. “I have no more idea than you,” he said. “Wat, I am grateful to you for your help.”

“That’s my pleasure, sir,” said the farmer, following the men to his door. Once he was outside, Simon turned slowly, struck by a thought.

“Wat, you said he just sprang from nowhere. How did he look? Did he seem anxious or worried? Could he have been tired from a fast ride?”

“Tired? No, not at all. No, if anything he was rested.”

“How do you mean?”

“He was… how can I describe it? He was all eager, like a hound smelling a scent. It was like he was determined to prove something. He kept muttering things.”

“What sort of things?” Simon was frowning now as Baldwin wandered back to listen.

“Something about someone…”

Baldwin smiled, then touched Simon’s arm. “Come on. I think we’ve taken enough of this farmer’s time already. He hated Bruther, I expect he was saying he’d like to get even for the insult the lad gave him on the road.”

“No, sir,” said Meavy, his face wrinkled into a scowl. “No, it wasn’t that so much. He was saying he was no worse after all, and his father was no better than him. That he might as well copy his father, and the sooner he was away the better. I don’t know, it was hard, my head was aching, but I think that’s what he was saying.”

“That he might as well copy his father?” Simon’s face was a picture of confusion.

“Yes, sir. That he might as well copy his father.”

The sun was slowly edging westward by the time they jogged out of the small farm and took the road back to Beauscyr. Simon led them, gazing unseeingly at the ground in front of his horse as he ran through the farmer’s evidence. Wat Meavy had impressed him with the clarity of his account. Though he was probably quite drunk when he was attacked after an evening spent at the inn, the farmer could nonetheless recall his journey home. He knew what the daylight was like, he knew where he was attacked, and all that after being clubbed round the head. His word must be believed.

“Simon?”

Turning, the bailiff saw his friend riding alongside, with a puzzled frown drawing his eyebrows so close together they made one thin black line on his brow. Simon grunted. “What?”

“Suppose, for a moment, that the farmer was right. Suppose John Beauscyr was muttering imprecations about his father. What would that mean?”

“That his father had given him a talking to about robbery, I suppose.”

“But this was before we heard about him being a robber. It was because we thought he was involved in killing Bruther, that he admitted robbing Meavy – to show us and his father that he could not have been near Bruther when he died.”

“Yes. So what?”

“Are you being intentionally dense?” Baldwin sighed. “Look, he was muttering about copying his father. Why would he want to do that – rob Wat Meavy, I mean. It seems to me he must have heard something about his father that day which made him decide to rob.”

“Something he had heard made him choose to rob Meavy?” Simon repeated blankly.

“It is possible. And yet, why would he say that he was ‘no worse, after all’?” Baldwin stared hard at his horse’s neck. “Simon, I just wonder…”

“What?”

“If he had already been told by Sir William not to steal and rob anymore, and then had heard that his father had used to rob as well, maybe that would have been enough to drive him to attack someone.”

Simon was dumbfounded. “That’s a very big guess,” he managed at last.

“If Sir William had already told his son to stop stealing, he would certainly be enraged to hear about Wat Meavy.”

“Yes, I suppose so. But to suggest that Sir William himself…”

“We know Sir William fought for the King during various wars; it would hardly be surprising if during that time he had a chance of spoils which were not strictly legitimate.”

“But how could John have heard something about his father?”

“Bruther.” Baldwin avoided Simon’s eye.

“Bruther!” Simon exploded. “How in the name of God do you come to think that? There is nothing to suggest that Bruther knew anything about Sir William, and now you say blithely that Bruther caused John to go beserk like this – what’s got into you?”

“I think,” said Baldwin slowly and precisely, “that it is possible that Bruther heard from his father about something that Sir William had done in the past. Perhaps a long time in the past, I do not know. We do know that Sir William was a soldier, like I said, but Thomas Smyth was too. The battle today proved that. He was highly efficient in the way he set out his troops, and if Sir William had not responded so effectively, it is likely that Smyth would have slaughtered the Beauscyr men. It is possible that Thomas knows something about Sir William. It would explain a lot, after all. Think how easily Sir William gave in to the miner. He said it was because Smyth was legally entitled to be there on the moors, and that may be so, but I find it difficult to believe.”

They had come to the main track across the moors now, and turned southwest on to the packed earth of the road.

“If I am right, Sir William was fearful of the miner because of what Thomas Smyth knew of his past. And perhaps…” He suddenly broke off and stared ahead blankly. “Simon – I have been a cretin! Of course, there’s only the one explanation!”

“What?” asked Simon sarcastically. “That Thomas Smyth threatened the knight with exposure if he didn’t let the tinners farm tin on his land? Or do you think that the knight knew something about the tinner that made him keep from his land anyway? Baldwin, I think you’ve…”

“Simon, listen! Please, just for a minute.” Baldwin was smiling broadly. “Think on this: Bruther normally had men to protect him, all the time he was on the moors. Yet on the very night that Sir William met Thomas Smyth, Bruther suddenly did not need those men again. Strange, don’t you think? Then again, think about this: John met Bruther that night and they certainly exchanged words – and we hear that he rushed off shortly afterward to Chagford and attacked the first man he met. Hardly the behavior of a rational squire, I would have thought.”

“I think you must have drunk too much of good Farmer Meavy’s ale – you’re babbling,” said Simon, but he kept a suspicious eye on his friend. After a few minutes, he lost his patience. “All right, then, Baldwin. So what do you mean? What do you guess from these two hints?”