An Honourable Estate (12 page)

“Hold your fire!” he called out to Harry.  “I know this
man.  Tegg?  What are you doing here?  You were lucky not to
have your head split into two.” 

He watched as Tegg turned to search the trees for the
marksman but didn’t see him until Harry slowly stood up, a fresh arrow trained
on him.

“I’m unarmed!” he called out, raising his hands to show he
meant to fire no weapon, “and so is my companion!”

“Who is with you?” asked William as he saw another movement
and the second man stood up, his hands also spread.  It was Stephen
Scallard.   “It’s all right Harry,” he said.  “I doubt these men
mean us any harm.”

He hoped he was right.  Both Scallard and Tegg were
still wanted by the sheriff to answer the charge of the murder of Henry Bury,
so another killing would not worsen their fate.  And even though he had
assisted Tegg, and had hidden him on his own land so that the man owed him
favour, he hoped that any price that had been put on his own head did not
include a free pardon.  That might be enough to tempt Tegg to do him a
disservice, and William knew that it was wiser to be cautious.

“What brings you here?” he asked them.

“We heard you were in the forest,” said Tegg, “and thought
that we should make ourselves known to you.”

“Come and sit by the fire,” said William, beckoning Harry to
join them as well.  “Though we can offer little in the way of hospitality.”

“A wise visitor brings his own provisions,” replied Scallard,
reaching down and then displaying two freshly caught rabbits by their
ears.  “I doubt you’ll refuse these for your breakfast.”

“Indeed, no,” said William, thinking how quickly the world
had been tumbled upside down and how strange it was that a lord of the manor
should feel so grateful for a meagre handout.  “I’m indebted to you,” he
told them as he watched Scallard begin to skin the beasts and use his stone
seat as a workbench to gut and butcher the meat before skewering it onto green
twigs to roast over the fire. 

“You seem to be managing very well,” remarked William as the
aroma of the meat made his mouth water.

“We’ve learnt many skills in order to survive, Sir
William.  Though you don’t seem to be doing too badly yourself,” he
remarked as he looked around the campsite with its partially hidden den.

“Surviving on the Scottish campaigns taught me much about
improvisation,” he said.  “My life has not been one of entire luxury, I
can assure you.  Are you living in the forest?” he asked.

“Mostly, though sometimes we go to the village to hear the
latest news.  The land there belongs to our master... well, to our
master’s widow anyway,” he concluded and William nodded, the unwelcome image of
the beheading of Piers Gaveston haunting his mind once more, except that this
time the head that rolled away was Adam’s. 

“And what news of the lady?” he asked, knowing that Margaret Banastre,
although Adam’s wife, was also the sister of Robert Holland.

“In London these past winter months, under the protection of
her brother and where there is food aplenty whilst her tenants starve,” he said
angrily.  William nodded.  He hoped that Mab was finding enough to
feed herself and their daughters.

 “I don’t suppose you have news of Haigh?” he asked.

“I know that Edmund Neville has been asking after your
whereabouts,” said Tegg.  “He has sworn that he will find you if you yet
live and part you from your head.”

“Then let us hope he thinks I am already dead,” replied
William as he took the roasted rabbit and ate hungrily.

Tegg
and Scallard stayed until late, until it was too dark for them to see their way
safely, and it was agreed that they would spend the night at the campsite and
that the following day William and Harry would go with them to Chorleigh to
discover if there was any more news about the hunt for them or if they had been
given up as dead.

William lay awake and worried.  With every day that
passed his fear for Mab and his daughters grew.  What would happen to them
if it was thought he was dead?   Haigh had been Mab’s, but on their
marriage it had become his property and now that he had defied the Earl of
Lancaster he surmised that the land would be forfeit, which meant that in
reality Mab would be in the control of Robert Holland.  It was a prospect
that alarmed him and he was powerless to do anything about it; even giving
himself up would not alter it. 

He turned over and over on the uncomfortable straw pallet and
wondered if he could creep home in disguise to check on Mab’s welfare.  Or
maybe he should send Harry Palmer, if he was willing to go.  Perhaps he
would ask him, he thought and eventually drifted into a troubled slumber.

When they woke the next morning there was a strong smell of
burning permeating the woodland.  William knew that the ground was much
too wet for a forest fire to have taken hold and the aroma was so strong that
it could not have been just from domestic hearths.  His first thought was
that it had a connection with the arrival of Scallard and Tegg the previous
day, but his suspicions faded when he saw their puzzled faces. 

Stephen Scallard climbed to the top of the nearby hill, where
the moor rose above the tree line, and came back to report that there was a
pall of smoke hanging over the village of Chorleigh.

Harry Palmer looked up in alarm from his cooking pot. “Do you
think something is amiss?” he asked.  “We must go.  They may need
help,” he said. 

William glanced at their two companions, but neither showed
any reluctance and he nodded his head decisively.  “But we will need to be
careful – in case this has something to do with the sheriff’s men.”

After stowing away anything of value that they could not carry
with them they quickly disguised the campsite as best they could and set off to
walk the two miles to the village.  The small settlement was built on
fertile meadowland between two rivers and as they approached William saw that
the smoke hung thickly on the still morning air, as if captured in the valley
between the houses.  It hid them from his sight until he drew near enough
to see the devastation.  William stared in shock and disbelief at the
broken fences, the trampled ground where crops had been growing, the churned
and muddied green around the market cross and the smouldering remains of the
two rows of houses that had clung to the sides of the main street.  The
only thing that still stood was the small stone church at the far end of the
village, and even the door of that was smashed and hanging half open.  Not
a dog barked and there was no sign of life; not an ox or sheep or chicken
remained and he thought that the village had been completely abandoned until he
saw a pair of wary eyes peeping from behind the church door.

Mounting anger seethed in him as his heartbeat quickened and
his hand reached for his sword.  He hoped that whoever had done this was
still nearby so that he could slowly tear them limb from limb for their
destruction of this unprotected village.  Whoever had done this, he
surmised, knew that Adam Banastre was dead and had decided that whatever could
be taken would be easy pickings for them; his main suspect was Edmund Neville,
the right hand man of the Earl of Lancaster and his sworn enemy since he had
taken Adam’s oath.  He would have revenge, he vowed to himself as he
stepped inside the church and looked around in the gloom at about a dozen or so
women, some with white faced children clinging behind their skirts, all of them
silent with shock.

William turned to the nearest, a young woman with dark hair
that trailed in a plait down her back.  She looked up at him, her brown
eyes wide with fear and her chin visibly trembling as she tried to speak.

“Who did this?” he asked as gently as his temper would
allow.  The woman swallowed and shook her head as her eyes filled with
tears that ran down her face and smudged the ashes that coated her
cheeks.  William reached down to touch her arm to reassure her.  “Are
you hurt?” he asked.  She shook her head and looked up at him
beseechingly.

 “They took my husband,” she whispered as she wiped the
tears from her face, smudging the dirt across it and William saw that her hands
were blackened and blistered from where she had fought the flames.  He
looked around at the other women who were all staring at him and at Stephen
Scallard who had followed him into the small, bare church.

“The Earl of Lancaster will pay for this, I promise you,” he
told them.

“Twas not Lancaster, sir,” whispered an older woman, twisting
the hem of her dress to wipe her face. 

“The sheriff then, Neville.  He has arms of a red
cross...” William crossed himself diagonally to show what he meant, but the
woman continued to shake her head.

“Twas the Scots,” she told him.  “They took everything...
food, animals and our husbands, ’cept for those they killed.”

“Go and see!” said William to Scallard. “But be
careful.  There may be some who still linger.  How long ago was
this?” he asked the woman.

“Just before daybreak, my lord.”

“Martha!”  Harry Palmer’s voice was a mixture of anguish
and relief as the woman with the dark hair ran into his arms and clung to him,
sobbing uncontrollably.  “Thank God you’re safe,” he said as he held her
close and kissed her head.  “She is my youngest sister,” he told William,
who now realised why his friend had been so grim faced and uncommunicative
during their brisk journey up the valley.

 “Where is Alfric?” Harry asked her as she brought her
tears under control.  “Where are the children?” he demanded taking her
arms in his hands and almost shaking her in his desperation to receive a
coherent answer from her.  

“There,” she said pointing across to where two little boys
were sitting, pressed close to one another.

“And Alfric?”

“I don’t know,” she said, wiping her face and nose on her
sleeve.  “I don’t know,” she repeated, and the despair in her voice echoed
on the faces of all the other women who sat or stood in stunned horror as if
waiting for William and Harry to make everything all right.

 William turned as he heard movement behind him. 
“Three dead,” said Scallard quietly.  “All men who had fought with us at
Preston.”

Survived only to be murdered by Scots, thought William
grimly, those barbarians who thought nothing of stealing and pillaging, and
murdering anyone who got in their way.

“You had better see if your brother-in-law is amongst them,”
he told Harry.  “Then see if there is any food left for these women and
children.” He turned back to the villagers.  “Is anyone hurt?” he
asked.  “Was anyone...?”  He was unsure how to ask the women if any
of them had been violated, but the older woman shook her head.

“They told us that if we stayed here and didn’t try to stop
them that no one would get harmed.  But our menfolk weren’t going to watch
whilst they took everything we had.  They tried to stop them, but it was
hopeless.  There were too many.”

“Don’t worry,” said William in an attempt at sympathy,
although he knew his words meant little to them.  “We will protect you
now.  This will not happen again.”

But how could it happen again, wondered William, as he went
back outside and looked around him.  There was nothing left to take. 
As he walked amongst the burnt out ruins of the houses he realised that these
women had only the meagre clothes they wore and that they were lucky to be
alive, lucky that the invaders had only thought of their stomachs and that
their hunger had driven other needs from their minds.

Tegg and Scallard came back shaking their heads. 
“Everything is gone,” said Tegg.  “I’ll kill them if I ever manage to lay
my hands on them.  War is one thing, but this...?”  He shrugged his
shoulders as he stared around at the smoking ruins that had been houses.

“We found another body,” said Scallard.  “Should we take
them into the church?”

“Let Harry Palmer talk to his sister first,” advised
William.  “The women may not want the children to see the dead.  And
someone will have to go to Croston to fetch the priest for the burials.”

“I’ll go,” said Tegg.

“Be careful,” warned William unnecessarily.  “Stephen,
you come with me.  We’ll see what we have in our traps in the forest that
might feed people.  I think that Harry had best stay here.”

There were three hares in the traps.  On another day it
would have been a good haul, but it wasn’t much to feed four grown men and
around a dozen women and their children − especially when there wasn’t
even a half a sack of grain to make bread or brew ale. 

William and Stephen were making their way back to Chorleigh
through the royal forest at Heapey when William caught the movement.  He
put out a hand to stop Stephen and motioned him to be still and silent. 
Through a gap in the trees he could see the stag, grazing in a clearing. 
It had not scented them.  Moving cautiously he took the longbow from his
back and drew an arrow from its quiver.  He fixed the notch to the string
and drew it back taut, closing one eye to help his aim.  Beside him
Stephen Scallard stood motionless though William was aware of his rapid
breathing as he watched.  But William’s hand was steady and his aim was
true.  He let the arrow fly and it whistled through the gaps in the trees
and embedded itself with a satisfying thud into the side of the animal which
looked round in surprise before staggering forwards and collapsing to its knees
as blood poured from the wound.