No Law in the Land: (Knights Templar 27) (21 page)

‘When did you realise that there had been an ambush and slaughter?’ Simon asked.

‘Not until later that day. I had to wander up there anyway,’ Hoppon said reluctantly.

‘Why?’ Simon asked.

‘Fetch some wood.’

Simon’s gaze went from Hoppon’s face to the wood store by the house. That was plainly a lie. The man had no need of any wood.

Hoppon’s face coloured slightly. ‘When I got there, it was obvious that there’d been an attack. Bodies lay everywhere.’

‘Was there any sign of money? Jewels? Anything to indicate that they’d had valuables to transport?’ Simon said. ‘Was there
any sign that there were churchmen among them?’

‘Oh, I didn’t want to stay and study them all. One or two looked soft enough to be priests, and one was tonsured, I remember.
The poor man with his eyes plucked out. Him and one or two others hadn’t done much work in their lives, not with their hands,
that was for sure,’ Hoppon said. ‘But the others were all younger, stronger lads. I’d say that most were fighters of one sort
or another. There were about ten of them. And there were some folk who looked different again. A
woman, some children … They even killed a bitch and her pup.’

Simon offered a short but heartfelt thank-you to God for keeping Baldwin away from this. He was invariably on the side of
hounds and other beasts.

‘The man who could have been a priest – did he have any distinguishing features that the coroner noted?’

‘Only one – he had a scar on his right thigh. Looked like a slash from a knife.’

‘I think it was a kick from a donkey,’ Simon said. ‘That shows that he was the priest Pietro from Tavistock, then, with his
force of men-at-arms. With so many fighters about him who looked strong, it’d be no surprise if others decided to join them
for safety. There is more security when in a band than alone. That will be why so many were there.’

‘True enough.’

‘The killers would have to have made noise when they rode off,’ Simon said. ‘Did you hear nothing?’

Hoppon took a breath, glanced at Agnes, and hesitated for a long moment before finally giving a short nod of his head. ‘I
didn’t want to admit it at first, because I didn’t want to put myself in danger’s way, but yes. There were some carts and
horses rode past here that night. I heard them because Tab here barked at them. He’s a good guard.’

‘Where would they have gone?’ Sir Richard asked, taking a couple of steps past Hoppon’s house to stare down the path.

‘That leads to a ford. I think they went along the back of my house on another path, and from there to the ford. Once there
was a manor behind us, down there,’ he added, pointing. ‘The place burned down, though, and now there’s little left behind.
But the path to it remains. And from there the old trail takes a man down to the ford.’

‘Whose manor was it?’ Simon asked.

‘Sir Edmund’s. But he died years ago. He was the last of his family. I served him until his death.’

‘How did he die?’ Sir Richard asked.

‘An accident. He fell from his horse into the river and drowned.’

Sir Richard and Simon nodded. It was one of the most common accidental deaths for anyone who lived near a river.

‘So,’ Simon said, ‘how much of all this did you tell Bill Lark?’

‘All. He knew it seemingly before he asked me,’ Hoppon said with
a slow grin. ‘Agnes knows what her old man was like. He’d only ever ask something when he’d already worked out the answer,
usually. That day, he came down here, and he sat there, on that log, and told me he’d worked out that the men must have come
up here. He told me he’d asked all over the place, from Oakhampton to up past Jacobstowe, and east and west too, and there
was no sign of carts or horses on any of the paths he’d looked at. Well, I realised when he asked me that he knew where they’d
gone already. If all the other paths were blocked to them, he said, they must have come near here.’

‘You weren’t going to tell him, then?’ Sir Richard growled.

‘Sir, no, sir. It’s dangerous to get in the way of men like them.’

‘Like who?’

‘Like men who can form a large enough group to attack a party of nineteen and slaughter the lot,’ Hoppon said reasonably.
‘Perhaps I’d feel safer if I lived in a smart city like Exeter, but I live here, between the parish and the woods. There’s
no one within calling, no one who’d notice if I was missing. What would you have me do? Report a rich lord and hope he’d be
arrested before he could hurt me? Perhaps he wouldn’t wait until the court opened before he killed me.’

‘The courts are here to protect you as well, man,’ Sir Richard said.

Hoppon looked up at him. ‘You think so? When the stories all say that the sheriff will take money to release the guilty, just
because they can afford it? When it’s said that he will arrest the innocent on purpose, just so he can take a bribe to let
them go? Oh, the courts may seem fair and reasonable to you, Sir Richard, but to an ordinary man like me, it looks much safer
to keep away.’

‘We wouldn’t let anyone hurt you, fellow,’ Sir Richard said with an angry shake of his head.

‘So you’ll protect me?’ And now there was a sarcastic tone in Hoppon’s voice. ‘You would see to it that I didn’t end up like
her husband, eh? You’d make sure I wasn’t buried six feet under like Bill Lark, would you?’

Exeter

Baldwin hurried from the castle and the suave sheriff with his unsubtle threats. He was shivering with rage, and he had to
force himself to stop and calm his breathing before he reached the high street.

There was no time to be angry with that fool, he said to himself. Not now. Much more important was doing everything he could
to find Edith. ‘Edgar, if we are to cover all the roads between here and Furshill, it will take us days,’ he said bitterly.
‘But we must try to do so, and check all those places where she might have been thrown. God
damn
that smug fool!’

‘We have no proof that she did in truth come this way,’ Edgar said gently. ‘Sir, she may have travelled to her father’s and
there been attacked or come to some mishap.’

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said. ‘But—’

‘Sir Baldwin, her mare was a strong little beast.’

Baldwin shot his servant a look. ‘Eh?’

‘I have seen many accidents. Sometimes the mount will be scared by something, and will run away until the fear dissipates.
If the rider is unfortunate and falls, she may not be easy to find, but that kind of event is rare. Then there are some accidents
in which the rider is hurt, but quietly; when she has been so involved in her thoughts she has been silently knocked from
the mount. In most such cases the horse will remain at the rider’s side.’

‘What are you trying to say?’ Baldwin snapped, but he already knew.

‘Sir Baldwin, if she had fallen, it is more than likely that someone would already have found her. None of the roads between
Furnshill and here are so quiet that on a day like today she would not have been seen. To imagine so is not sensible. So perhaps
she has already been found and even now is resting on a bier in a peasant’s house.’

‘Or?’

‘Or she had no accident, but a mishap. Someone decided to capture her. If that is the case, our task of finding her will be
that much more difficult.’

Baldwin nodded, staring out over the city towards the west. ‘She is there somewhere, Edgar. What if she has been captured
by some felon …?’

‘If she has, then we shall have to do all in our power to rescue her,’ Edgar said imperturbably. ‘However, we can do little
until we learn what could have happened.’

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said. Now that the cold rage had left him, he found his mind was functioning more efficiently again. He continued
staring westwards, but now with narrowed eyes, as though he was searching through the fog of distance to see the slim form
of the girl as she lay at the side of the road, her mare standing protectively over her, or perhaps struggling with a gang
of felons as they dragged her away, hands bound, their knives at her throat.

Neither was to be suffered without making an effort to rescue her.

‘Come with me,’ he said, and turned back towards the castle.

Near Abbeyford Woods

When Hoppon had finished speaking, Simon nodded. ‘Very well. You have explained your situation clearly. It’s not our place
to comment on your behaviour. If the good coroner Sir Peregrine was content, so are we.’

Sir Richard was about to comment, but Simon walked over to him, and he subsided, shaking his head reluctantly.

Simon continued. ‘No, Hoppon, that is nothing to us. However, we do need to try to learn who killed all those people. Two
of them were religious men, and they were carrying money for the king. Whoever killed them stole from the king, so whether
you feel uncomfortable about talking or not, the fact is, the king himself wishes to see these men in gaol – and that is where
they will be going, very soon. So any help you can give us will be to your advantage, because it will entail their being taken
away that bit sooner.’

Hoppon shifted uncomfortably on his bad leg, still leaning on his staff. At last he nodded. ‘I’ll tell you all I know, or
guess at. And I only pray that you’ll be sensible about it and catch the men. Very well then.
It was Tab who heard them first, as I said, but as soon as he started barking, I heard them too. Horses, carts, men talking
loudly, laughing. As they always do.’

‘Did you hear anything of note?’ Sir Richard demanded.

‘No, only that they were to go back to their base. They didn’t say who they were or where exactly they were going.’

‘Who is there who lives over east of here, then?’ Simon asked.

‘Oh, I know nothing about the lands over that way,’ Hoppon said, and Simon was quite convinced he was lying. However, the
man was being forced to tell two officers of the law about the illegal affairs of men who had shown themselves willing to
kill nineteen folk and rob the king. It was hardly surprising that he was reluctant.

‘Very well,’ Simon said. ‘What can you tell us about the death of this widow’s husband?’

‘Oh, poor old Bill,’ Hoppon said. ‘I found him over towards Swanstone Moor.’

‘Where is that?’ Sir Richard asked.

‘It’s that little patch of moor over yonder,’ Hoppon said, pointing.

Following the direction of his finger, Simon could see a small area of moorland over to the east, slightly south of a hillock
on the other side of the river. ‘Where was he in there?’

‘There is a large beech tree at the edge of the moor,’ Hoppon said, squinting as he peered. ‘See it there? Just to the left
of the line of that hedge.’

Sir Richard glanced down at Hoppon’s leg. ‘Can you ride a horse? Doubt you could walk so far as that, could you?’

‘I think I could, so long as you don’t have a great hurry. I’ve walked further than that in my time,’ Hoppon said.

‘Hoppon used to be an archer,’ Agnes said.

‘Really?’ Sir Richard said, letting his eyes pass over Hoppon’s frame. ‘A while ago, then.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Hoppon asked.

‘You’ve lost the muscles in your shoulders,’ the knight said. ‘Archers have bigger shoulders and upper arms than most men.’

‘You’re right,’ Hoppon said. ‘I was bigger when I was younger. Before this,’ he added, tapping his thigh.

‘What happened?’ Simon asked as they walked, matching their speed to Hoppon’s slow gait. ‘Was it in a battle?’

Hoppon glanced at him, then at Agnes just beyond him before anwering. ‘No. It was my own stupid fault. When I was younger,
I thought I was invincible. There was a fire in a barn on the old manor, and I ran inside to rescue what I could, but a spar
from the roof fell on me and burned my leg badly. I’m lucky I can walk at all. Still, I brought out a few items of value,
and my lord rewarded me well enough.’

‘That’s the old manor where the knight died?’ Simon asked.

‘Yes. My lord Edward. Right, here we go!’ Hoppon said. They had reached the edge of the river, and now he plunged in, hobbling
as fast as he could, before the waters soaked his boots entirely.

Simon and Sir Richard exchanged a look, and then glanced at the monk and Agnes. The monk curled his lip, but hitched up his
robes, looped them over his forearms, and trotted through.

Agnes returned Simon’s look coolly enough. ‘I want to see where my husband died,’ she said, and with that, she drew up her
skirts to display her knees without any outward sign of shame, and waded in.

Sir Richard shrugged. ‘If they’re all going …’ he muttered, lifting his sword’s sheath high. He stalked forward rather
like a warrior marching into battle, head low on his shoulders, glowering ferociously as he went, as though daring the river
to seep in through the leather of his old boots.

Simon crossed immediately after him, and soon the five were making their way up an ancient stone pathway that had become wildly
overgrown. Looking about him, Simon couldn’t help but think that if Baldwin were here, he would be able to make much more
of the trail than he himself could.

Suddenly he slowed a little, frowning. At the edge of the roadway brambles had encroached. Here, as he looked down, he could
see, clear on the stems, the marks of crushing. ‘Sir Richard, look at this.’

‘Eh?’ The knight squatted at his side, studying the marks Simon had pointed out. ‘Aye, Bailiff. I reckon you’re right. Definitely
the signs of carts passing by here.’

‘I told you,’ Hoppon said. He was leaning on his staff again, his hands clasped in that curious manner. ‘Think they came up
here.’

‘And you told Bill as much?’ Simon asked.

‘He guessed as much. But he came up here, yes. And then he was found here, a few days later. Head all bashed in till his skull
was broken. A terrible sight.’

‘Where was he?’ Sir Richard asked.

In answer, Hoppon merely shifted his grip on his staff and began to make his way up the hill, hobbling painfully. He could
only move with care, especially now it was more stony. His staff with its unshod foot could grip quite well, and he hopped
and skittered over the ground with a fluid gait that was quite surprising to Simon.

‘It was here,’ he said at last, just at the foot of the beech tree he had indicated from outside his house. ‘He was lying
here.’

He was pointing at the base of the tree, but his eyes weren’t there. His eyes were fixed upon Agnes.

Bow

Edith knew only abject, blinding terror.

She had been raised in the house of a man who was a regular traveller and fighter. Simon had never been one to rest when there
was work to be done, and he had been relentless in pursuit of those who had committed crimes. At times, Edith had known that
his life could have been in danger. Her mother had even spoken once of a time when she herself had been captured by a man
and Baldwin had rescued her, but this was different. It was terrifying to be so completely at the mercy of someone she scarcely
knew. All she recalled about Wattere, after all, was a brief, shocking glimpse as he fought her father earlier in the year,
trying to kill him in their house. Later Simon had managed to have him arrested, but that was months ago. So long, indeed,
that she had almost forgotten his face.

She was so
stupid
not to have recognised him. He had approached through the mist, it was true, but that was no excuse. She should have recognised
him. Oh, she could sob now for the foolishness of her behaviour, she could wail and beat her breast, but the truth was that
it was entirely her fault. She should not have left Exeter alone, nor should she have tried to make her way back again today
when Baldwin had already said to her that he would do his best. It would have been safer for all were she to have been escorted
to her father’s house. She could have remained there while the men went to free her husband. Then at least she would have
been secure in the knowledge
that Peter would have had the very best opportunity of gaining his freedom again.

‘Not far, my little dove,’ William atte Wattere called to her.

She made no comment. Her hands were growing more and more numb by the minute, and when she looked down, she could see that
they were turning blue below the rope. At least the rope had been taken from about her throat. It had chafed and worn at her
flesh until she was sure that she must be bleeding, and she had been surprised when she found that there was no stain on the
rope or her tunic, though she was sore from the shoulder upwards, as though she had been scorched in a fire. Still, when he
took the rope away, she was aware of an odd sense of gratitude, as though he was being kind by removing it, rather than intensely
cruel in placing it about her in the first place. It shamed her to be grateful.

There was a possibility that she might be able to escape, she felt. Looking up, she could see the sun as a brighter glow behind
the clouds. She had been raised on Dartmoor; she was used to navigating by a half-concealed sun, and she thought that this
was probably a good sign. Surely the man didn’t realise that she was so familiar with this area. She was sure that the moors
were over there to her left, and this road must be the one that wandered from Crediton to Copplestone, and then on up to Bow,
before curling around to Oakhampton. That was good, because if he was taking her that far, there might be a possibility of
escaping him. She had already tried to loosen the ropes at her wrists, but the problem was, her captor had tied them too tightly.
Not only could she not release them at first; also, now that she had lost all feeling in her fingers, there wasn’t even a
possibility of working at the knots.

‘Will we rest soon? My hands are hurting so much.’

‘Soon we’ll rest,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Then something caught his attention. He threw her a look. ‘You
all right?’

‘My hands,’ she said again, holding them up for inspection.

He sucked at his teeth as he looked at them. Then he muttered a short curse, stared ahead for a moment, and quickly beckoned
her. He tried to prise the knots apart for a moment, and then spat an oath. Pulling his dagger from his sheath, he set the
blade to the rope. Looking up, he gave her a wolfish grin. ‘Don’t move, or this’ll hurt more than it need.’

With a careful sawing motion, he cut through the knot, and the cords fell away. At first there was no feeling, no pain, just
a strange tingling that seemed to begin at her fingertips, but soon that changed. The tingle became a stinging agony that
reached all the way to her wrists, which now hurt like the torment of demons. She knew only screaming pain, so intense that
she could not even consider holding her reins. It was impossible, and she wept as she tried to shake the pain away. She warmed
her hands under her armpits, then rubbed them on her thighs, all to no avail.

Wattere looked on as her weeping began again and intensified. ‘Woman, what is it? Are you making mock of my good intentions
in releasing you? I’ll not have that, I swear.’

‘My hands are on fire! Oh, oh, the pain! Oh, oh!’

Eventually he took her hands in his and studied them carefully. He could see the rawness where the rope had bound her, but
the hands themselves showed no injury. ‘I am sorry I tied you so tight,’ he said. ‘But I can’t help that. I don’t want you
to escape. If you swear to me that you’ll not try to run, I’ll allow you to ride on without a rope. What do you say?’