Michael JECKS - The Merchant’s Partner

Not like this lush view. Here, she felt, the land must be much as God had intended. This was how Eden must have looked: even now in the middle of winter it was green and healthy. It seemed impossible that the moors were a scant half-day’s journey away.

“Come inside, both of you, out of the cold. I have food prepared. This is quite a week for entertaining!”

Baldwin led the way, chatting about his visit from Peter Clifford on the previous Friday night and the Bourc’s arrival the night before, though most of what he said passed over their heads – at present they were interested only in his fire, and they hurried to the hearth.

The room was just as Margaret recalled, long and broad, with a fireplace and chimney in the north wall, and benches set around the tables. Bread and cold meats lay on platters on the table, and a pot hung from its chain over the flames, giving off a strong gamey smell. When she walked over, tugging off her gloves, and held her hands towards the flames, she saw that a thick soup was bubbling inside, and her mouth watered at the scent that slowly rose to fill the room.

As her hands gradually began to warm and struggle back to painful life, she turned to heat her back. Casting an eye over the hall, she let Simon and Baldwin’s conversation float over her unheeded. They were talking about the knight’s friend, the Bourc de Beaumont, and his journey to find his old nurse. She had no interest in tales of old battles, and stories of the kingdom of Jerusalem saddened her – it was depressing to think of the holy places being violated by heretics. Unfastening her cloak, she swept it off.

Baldwin stood by the table and surveyed the food, arrayed on its platters as if for inspection. Glancing down and seeing his dog, he took his knife and cut a slab of ham, tossing it to her, before turning and smiling at his guests.

To Margaret, he appeared to have changed a great deal in some ways; not at all in others. The lines on his face, the scars and weals of suffering, had almost all gone, to be replaced by a calm acceptance of life. It was as if a sheet of linen which had been wrinkled and creased had been ironed smooth again. Where the pain had sat, now there was only calm acceptance. But still he had the quick, assured manner that she recalled from last year when she had first met him.

Simon too had noticed the signs of comfort and peace, and he was pleased, knowing that it was due to his own intervention that the knight was still free. Baldwin had admitted to having been a member of the Knights Templar when they had met the year before, and Simon was sure that his decision to keep the man’s secret was the right one.

It had not been easy, especially after the murder of the Abbot of Buckland. It had been a dreadful year. There had been a band of marauding outlaws, murdering and burning from Oakhampton to Crediton, and then the abbot was taken and killed as well. For a newly appointed bailiff, the series of deaths was a problem of vast proportions, but he had managed to solve them. After hearing the knight’s tale, he had been forced to search his own soul, but in the end there had been little point in arresting him, and Simon had kept his secret hidden. Now he was pleased at how the knight had justified his decision.

“Do you realise, Baldwin, how well you are considered in Exeter?” he asked as they sat.

The knight raised an eyebrow and gave him a quizzical glance, as if expecting a trap of some sort. “Oh yes?” he said suspiciously.

“Yes, even Walter Stapledon has heard good reports of you.”

“Then I hope the good bishop keeps his reports to himself, my friend! I have no desire to be called away to clerk for the king or my lord de Courtenay. Edgar!” This last in a bellow. “Where’s the wine?”

His servant soon arrived, bringing a pot and mugs for the sweet, heated drink, serving them all and setting the pot by the fire to keep warm as he sat with them, flashing a brief smile at Margaret and Hugh, Simon noticed, but not to him. Ah well, he thought resignedly. It was only last year I had him trussed like a chicken and called him a liar.

“So how is Lydford, Simon?”

“Lydford is cold, Baldwin.”

“Cold?”

Margaret broke in. “It’s freezing! It’s at one side of the gorge, and the wind howls up the valley like the Devil’s hounds on the scent of a lost soul.”

“It sounds lovely the way you describe it,” said Baldwin gravely. “I look forward to visiting you both there.”

“You’ll be very welcome, whenever you want to come, but the cold’s not all,” said Simon, grinning in apparent despair. “Since I arrived I’ve had visits from everyone. The landholders complaining about the tinners; the tinners complaining about the landholders. God! The king allows the tinners to take any land they want – well, it’s worth a fortune in taxes to the king’s wardrobe – and everyone is up in arms about them, and expect me to do something about it! What can I do? All I’ve been able to do so far is try to keep them all apart, but now they’re starting to come to blows.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to sort matters out. After all, things are never easy – you had your own troubles here last year, didn’t you? Margaret, try some squirrel – or rabbit, it’s fresh and young.”

“Er, no, thanks,” she said, wincing and taking a chicken leg. The knight glanced at her in surprise, while Simon continued:

“The trail bastons, you mean? Hah! Give me a group of outlaws any day; they’re easier to deal with than free men and landowners, all you need do is catch them and see them hang. I can’t even do that with the mob at Lydford.”

“Anyway,” said Margaret, holding up her chicken thigh and studying it as she searched for the most succulent meat. “This must all be very tedious for you, Baldwin. What’s been happening here? Anything exciting?”

Laughing, the knight shrugged shamefacedly and pulled a grimace of near embarrassment. Head on one side, he said, “Not a great deal, really. Tanner hasn’t cleared some of the tracks hereabouts, and my warhorse went lame some weeks ago. Apart from that…”

“I could learn to dislike you, you know,” said Simon with mock disgust.

Baldwin laughed, but then his eyes narrowed a little. “What else is there, anyway, Simon? You must have heard more news from Exeter.”

Belching softly, Simon upended his mug before rising and refilling it. When he spoke, the humour had passed, to be replaced by a sober reflection. “There’s lots of news, Baldwin, but none of it’s good. This must go no further, of course, but even Walter has lost all patience. He says although King Edward was irresponsible before, now his favourite, Piers Gaveston, has been killed, he’s worse!”

“In what way?” asked Baldwin frowning.

“He’s playing one lord off against another, ignoring the Ordinances, allowing insults to go unpunished… It seems that he just wants to be left alone to play about in his boats and other frivolities. He spends his time in sailing – and playing with his common friends! There are even rumours that he was not his father’s son,” said Simon quietly.

Nodding slowly, Baldwin reflected on the tales he had heard: that this second Edward was a supposititious child, a replacement inserted into the household like a cuckoo chick in a nest. Wherever there were troubles, Baldwin thought, there are people prepared to imagine the worst. “I cannot believe that,” he said shortly. “But it’s true that the state is becoming unsettled. I have heard that tenants have revolted against their lords, even that some knights have resorted to brigandage once more. And there are more outlaws – more free companies and trail bastons – coming down from the north, displaced people who have lost their homes and villages to the Scots, who are trying to find new homes.”