Michael JECKS: The Last Templar

“Welcome home, Simon,” she said, smiling softly up at him.

“Hello, my love. How are you?”

“Fine now that you’re home again. So how was the journey?”

He laughed. “The journey was fine, but not as good as the meeting! You’re holding the new bailiff of Lydford.” As she gazed up at him with her eyes wide in her surprise, he suddenly grabbed her to him and laughed, bellowing his joy infectiously, squeezing her in his delight as his daughter clung to his hair.

“Simon, Simon, let go,” his wife said at last. Free again, she stood, hands on hips, as she frowned at him in mock exasperation. “Don’t forget your daughter’s on your shoulders, you fool! So you’re the bailiff, are you? What does that mean? Will we have to give up the house? What will we do about the farm?”

Still smiling, he caught his daughter and carefully, as if she was a fragile and precious object, which she was to him, he put her down in front of them, where she stood staring up at them both. “We can if we want, but I think we ought to rent it out. We can afford to while we live in the castle.”

“So we’ll have to arrange for all our things to be moved to Lydford, then,” she said, with a small frown of concentration. She turned and went into the house, Simon following, and led the way through to the hall. Here, in their living room, she walked over to the trestle by the fire and sat, chin on her fist, gazing into the flames. Simon slowly wandered over to the wall to pick up another bench, which he carried round to the other side of the fire, so that he could sit and watch her.

Margaret was deep in thought. She was wondering about Lydford and whether she would like the new responsibilities that were going to be imposed on her husband as inevitable adjuncts to his job. Looking up, she saw his gaze fixed on the fire, a small smirk of pride on his lips, and she sighed. She knew that she would not stand in his way – he was obviously delighted with his new position, so she would be too. But it would be difficult, she thought as she looked around the hall of their house, it would be hard to leave this place that had been their home since they married, the home where their daughter had been born, where they had known so many happy times.

As if it was the first time, as if she had never really seen it before, she peered around their hall, her hall.

The fire was in the centre, sitting on a bed of clay in the solid, packed earth of the floor. Rushes, fresh each month, were liberally spread all over. The high windows were open to the air, letting in thin streams of daylight. At night they would be covered by the tapestries in a vain attempt to exclude the cold gusts of winds that came across all the way from the coast. Tables, long and heavy, were against the walls with their benches underneath, all except for the one that they used each day, the long one that could seat the family and their four servants. That stayed out, close to the fire.

Would she really miss the house that much? she wondered. It was only a house, after all, and a castle was surely an improvement. She thought of their solar, the little family room that lay hidden behind the tapestry at the far end of the hall, curtained off so that she and her husband could sleep away from the inquisitive gaze of the servants. Like the rest of their house, it was draughty and almost always cold. Surely the castle would be, at the very least, warmer than that!

But what about the new duties? That was the real trouble, she thought. Glancing up quickly, she saw a troubled frown on Simon’s face and knew that he was thinking the same. As bailiff and wife they would have to be available to any of the local people whenever they wanted help. There would be no privacy and little opportunity for rest. How well could their little family cope with that strain? And there was the town as well. Lydford was a stannary town, crucial to the tin trade. Tin meant money, and where there was money there were arguments.

She sighed. This was more difficult than probably even her husband had realised. After her father had been killed two years ago while he was out riding with the posse, she had kept hidden her awful terror – that one day her man would die while out trying to uphold the law. It was so common – too common – for many outlaws were like small armies, like regiments on the march, taking what they could from the countryside and people. Now, as he went higher up the ladder, Simon would be more obvious as a target to any trail baston with a bow and arrow. Did she want him to take on this extra responsibility?

With another sigh she knew that it was pointless to speculate. Her father had only been a farmer, a local man called to the posse. So Simon was a bailiff, so what? Maybe it meant he would soon be promoted again, taken away from the risks of laws and control. Would he be in any more danger than her father had been? She thoughtfully glanced around the room again, already beginning to estimate costs of removal and assessing what could be left behind.

Simon watched her with a degree of trepidation as he followed her gaze around the room. He could easily sense her feelings, and he knew he would do anything to stop her being depressed – even if it meant his rejecting the position at Lydford. If she felt that she could not be happy at the castle, they would have to stay here, at their home. It could wreck his prospects, but he had decided, when he chose her for his wife, that she was the most important thing in his life. And any job could be no substitute for her happiness.

So it was with absolute delight that he saw her eyes light on him again, with a calm acceptance. He knew without asking that she had chosen, that she had accepted.

The next two days went by in a whirl as Margaret began organising the move and arranging for a wagon to help them take their belongings. Hugh was kept busy with the constant stream of visitors who arrived to offer their congratulations. The news had spread fast from the time that he and the bailiff had returned, apparently, and there seemed to be no end to the farmers and landowners who kept coming to pass on their best wishes.

It always astonished Simon how quickly news could travel in such an empty area. The whole of Devonshire only contained a few thousand souls, and yet it seemed that no sooner had he been told than the whole of the county was aware. He even received a message from Walter Stapledon, the bishop of Exeter, expressing pleasure at his new position.

But Simon soon began to fret at being kept indoors by the continuous flow of visitors. After having to travel, and now with these guests arriving at every spare minute of the day, he felt as if his life was not his own. Three times he had promised to play with his daughter, only to have to stop to see another man come to offer his congratulations, and she had made him swear that he would spend a whole uninterrupted day with her after the last cancellation. He complied, mainly to halt the inevitable flow of tears.

He had not even been able to get time to go for a ride, and at last, on the third day after the announcement had become public knowledge, the day he was to ignore all visitors and stay at home with Edith, he saddled his horse early, before she rose, and went out for a ride to loosen his taut muscles and get a brief spell of freedom before honouring his promise.

It was still early when he left, only a little after dawn, and he started out slowly, warming up his horse and himself before taking any serious exercise. They rode quietly up the hill behind his house, following the old tracks between the fields in the early morning chill. The night had brought more rain and he had to splash through puddles and small streams as he made his way along the narrow tracks that bordered the fields and woods. At the top of the hill he turned west and followed the ridge for a couple of miles until at last he was up on the tall spine of land that pointed towards the southern moors, a straight and easy canter. He paused a minute in anticipation, he and his horse standing still, with a slight glow lighting his face from their ride so far. Then, with a grin like a naughty boy, he peered round behind him to see that no one was watching, and whipped his horse into a gallop.