Richard muttered a swift curse, then set off again, running at a more steady pace, making this time for his brother John’s manor.
Simon walked to the fire, waving his guest to the seat at the side where he could get warm, but he didn’t sit down himself. He was filled with a strange feeling of trepidation – a premonition that this meeting would bring a crisis to his life.
It was clear that Baldwin was aware of the tension between them. Only a short while ago the two had separated with their friendship shattered. Simon had placed his trust in Baldwin, and felt that it had been flung back into his face. Baldwin had, so he believed, placed Edith’s life in danger.
But he missed Baldwin’s companionship.
‘Simon, I—’
‘It is good to see you again,’ Simon interrupted. He found himself moving towards the door. ‘Let me fetch some wine – I will get it. No, I’ll have Hugh fetch it, the lazy bastard – about time he did something. And then some meats for you. That would be good.’
He felt as though action and movement were needed to avert disaster. If he continued talking, if he kept moving, he could block the terrible danger that he could see in Baldwin’s eyes.
‘Please, Simon, old friend … just come here and sit for a moment. I want no wine or water, only a moment’s companionship. Please.’
Simon felt as though there was a rending in his belly as he tore himself away from the doorway and walked back to the fire. ‘If this is about—’
‘Simon, it’s Edith. I saw her today in Exeter.’
‘How is she?’ Simon demanded urgently.
‘She asked me to tell you that she loves you, Simon. And misses you. She was very sad.’
‘Yes. Yes, I expect she is,’ Simon mumbled, and then he found that the room seemed to shift, closer to him, and then away again, as though he was sitting upon a cart, and being pushed and then pulled. And suddenly he felt Baldwin’s hand on his shoulder, gripping him firmly, helping him to a stool, and then there was a mazer filled with fragrant wine, and a hubbub of voices all around.
‘Sit back, Simon. Wait until you feel better again. You nearly toppled, old friend,’ Baldwin was saying, but Simon was only aware of the cool hands on his forehead, the concerned look in his wife’s eyes as she peered down at him.
‘Are you all right? Baldwin called me in, and you looked as though you were suffering from a fever. You feel very warm still.’
‘I am fine, Meg. Really, I’m fine,’ he said, and took her hand, kissing it. ‘Baldwin has a message for us from Edith.’
‘She looked well?’ Margaret asked. She left her hand in Simon’s, standing resolutely at his side.
Her face gave away none of her pain, Baldwin thought. She had always struck him as a most courtly lady, for all that she was a farmer’s daughter from some obscure vill in Devon. Yet no matter what her upbringing, there was a natural elegance to her. Tall, slim, fair, with a face that was still beautiful, she fixed her eyes upon Baldwin as though challenging him.
‘Margaret, Edith bade me to say that she misses you both, and that she loves you. I had only a moment with her in the street in Exeter, or I would have spoken with her longer, but she was insistent that I should tell you that.’
He glanced from one to the other. Margaret had tears in her eyes as she gripped her husband’s hand and looked down at him. She wiped her face with a gesture of impatience.
‘There! I knew she wouldn’t be happy to be away from us.’
Simon shook his head. ‘Of course she wouldn’t. She is still our daughter.’
Baldwin looked away. ‘Well, I have delivered my message, so I should—’
‘Baldwin, you will not think of leaving us! It is late, and the roads are not so safe as once they were,’ Margaret said. ‘You must remain here for the night.’
‘I am sure that you would prefer to be alone to think of your daughter,’ he said, his eyes on Simon.
‘I wouldn’t hear of it,’ Margaret pressed him. ‘
We
wouldn’t, would we, Simon?’
Simon hesitated momentarily, but then shook his head. ‘No, old friend. No, you must stay. Please.’
At that word, and the emotion in it, Baldwin felt reluctant to trust his own voice. He simply nodded.
‘You see,’ Simon went on, ‘Edith’s father-in-law will not permit her to have any communication with us.’ He paused again, and when he continued, his voice broke. ‘He won’t let her speak to her own parents.’
The great manor house was close by the church, and as Richard dropped from the cart, he stood for a moment staring at the home where he had spent his childhood before being sent to the church.
It had taken him all afternoon to walk five leagues. When he had been younger, it would have been a mere idle wander, but today he felt exhausted, due to his bruised and battered body. Perhaps it was also the fact of not knowing whether his brothers were in danger or not. He couldn’t tell. But he did know that someone might even now be preparing to arrest him and hold him for the justices, whenever they might deign to come, and this was enough to make his neck feel a creeping horror.
No, this was ridiculous! Setting his shoulders, he marched towards the house. The chances of anyone coming to capture him here were remote in the extreme. It was foolish to have come here at all. Five leagues – fifteen miles, thereabouts – and he was going to have to turn his face back to the east and return first thing in the morning.
The hall was a marvellous old construction, with solid oak supporting the heavy roof. A fire in the middle of the chamber was fitfully sparking, four enormous logs lying parallel on a bed of glowing ash, just as it had always been when he was a boy.
John was standing at the fireside, sipping thoughtfully from a goblet. He was silent as Richard entered and gave him greeting, but motioned towards a large pewter jug and a second goblet. As Richard picked it up, he marvelled at the weight.
‘Do not think it, brother,’ he heard John say.
‘Think what?’
John looked up. In the dim room his eyes looked entirely black. ‘Do not think to rob me as well. You can drink from my goblets, but don’t try to steal one.’
‘I am a man of God, brother!’
‘And Roger Belers was a saint. Yes.’
Richard felt a frown pass over his face. ‘What’s the matter with you? I came here to let you know that—’
‘You and our brothers, together with those incomparable arses the la Zouches – I assume it was Ralph and Ivo? I thought so – chose to lay in wait for the baron of the Treasury and kill him, along with all his men. Marvellous. So with one swift blow, you have set our family against the Despenser, the Treasurer, and the king. They will not rest until you and the others have all had your heads taken off.’
‘Brother, Eustace was at my church today, and a posse went after him, I think.’
‘And you wish me to fly to his aid? To give up all my property and position to help a brother who has turned murderer? He didn’t even have the courage to stand before his enemy in fair combat, but captured the poor devil and slew him like a bullock. You were there. It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘No, it’s not true. It was a hard battle, and we happened to win. But I tell you this: Belers is better dead. He would have destroyed you as well as us. You are one of us, John. Do you really think he would steal our lives, and leave you alone? Don’t be naïve!’
John studied him carefully over the top of his goblet as though
seeing him for the very first time. ‘You believe that? I was safe before this. Now I am considered guilty, if only by association. Which is why you and the others are not welcome here. I will not put my wife and children at risk just because of your selfishness.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means, dear brother, that if I find you again on the roadside, or if I hear any evidence which connects you to the murder of Belers, I will come and attach you myself. I will accuse you, and I will see you hang for the murder. So if you have a brain in your head, copy your brothers and fly.’
‘You would really see me slain?’
‘Gladly, if it would protect my wife and children,’ John said. He kept to the far side of the fire, and as Richard tried to circumnavigate the large firepit, his brother moved to keep the flames between them. ‘No, Richard. Come no closer. You have to flee. The others are going too. Ivo and Ralph la Zouche are already in France, I think. It is possible that they will join with the queen over there. Who knows, but that you may return with her? Perhaps there will be pardons issued when the king sees her again. But for now, you must ride. Take the grey from my stable. He is a resilient beast, and should take you to the coast without much trouble.’
‘Thank you, John,’ Richard said stiffly. He drained his goblet and held it up for a moment. Then, with a contemptuous grimace, he tossed it to his brother, turned and stormed out.
In the room, his brother lifted the goblet, which he had caught, and prayed, ‘Godspeed, little brother. God speed your feet and bring you safe to France.’
And then he fell into his chair and wept silently for his brothers.
Simon and Baldwin had eaten together many times, and in many different places, but few meals had been as sombre as this one.
Margaret tried to lighten the atmosphere by bringing in wine which she had mulled, and to which she had added burned wine to
warm their spirits, but even that appeared to serve little purpose. She had also gone to some lengths to ensure that the meal was good, having cooked her husband’s favourite pies with the last pieces of some bacon and beef with a thick gravy, and a stew of oxtail thickened with barley, both of which he usually adored, but today even they would scarcely tease his appetite.
It was Baldwin who broached the subject again after their meal. ‘Did you manage to speak with her at all after this order from Edith’s father-in-law? How was the message relayed to you?’
Margaret sighed. ‘A letter from her husband, and signed by her. You can hardly blame her. Poor Peter went through hell when he was arrested like that. And there was the suggestion that men were attacking him in order to get at Simon.’
‘I think it was much more to do with the avarice of the new sheriff,’ Baldwin said.
‘Be that as it may,’ Simon said, ‘Charles was convinced that his son was captured and gaoled just in order to hurt me. So naturally, to protect him, he wished to ensure that all contact between Edith and me was stopped. He gave her an ultimatum. She could remain with her husband, or she could remain with her parents. One or the other – not both. That was soon after we took her home again – about the Feast of Saint Martin.
*
Since then, we’ve heard nothing from her.’
‘She could hardly leave her husband. She has a duty to him,’ Margaret said sorrowfully.
‘Of course,’ Baldwin agreed, but he felt the anger boiling in his belly. Forcing a young girl to choose between her husband and the parents she adored was cruel beyond belief. Wayward, in her youth Edith had been one of those young women who fall in love with the latest man to pass her horizon. There had been knights and squires and two peasants to his certain memory, each of whom had given Simon and Margaret varying degrees of
anguish. Edith’s relationship with her parents had eased and matured in the last year, and to remove her from them just as they began to appreciate each other as friends rather than as parents and children, seemed especially cruel.
There was a cry from the room next door, where Simon and Margaret had their solar.
‘Excuse me,’ Margaret said quickly, rising. ‘It is Perkin. Help yourselves to more food.’
Baldwin nodded and was about to reach for the jug of wine, when a hand reached down and grabbed it from him. He looked up into the scowling face and had to hide a smile.
‘’Tis my job tonight,’ Hugh said, and poured a mazerful for him, leaning over the table to top up Simon’s. ‘Can’t have guests filling their own cups. Might take too much.’
Baldwin gave a short chuckle. He had never been a heavy drinker, preferring to sip a little fruit juice or water. Too often when a boy had he woken with a heavy head after too much wine or ale, and he had eschewed such gluttony when he joined the Templars, from fear that it might reduce his effectiveness as a knight. ‘Glad to see that you persevere in protecting your master’s interests, Hugh.’
Hugh said nothing, but stood glowering, as though ready to leap to the defence of Simon’s stock of wine.
‘Hugh is well enough,’ Simon said, taking a mouthful of wine. He kept his head down, rarely meeting Baldwin’s eyes. ‘And I am very grateful he came back. I need someone to keep an eye on Perkin. He’s into everything.’
‘As a boy should be,’ Baldwin said.
‘It was why I didn’t want him in Dartmouth, you remember?’ Simon said. ‘I feared he’d jump on board a ship and disappear for the next twenty years. Just as I thought Edith …’
Simon grimaced as he drew to a halt.
‘Have you heard from the bishop?’ Baldwin asked. ‘He says that the king is demanding that officials should be installed at every port to prevent messages that could aid the queen and Mortimer from being sent.’
‘Oh, aye? And do they have any idea how many barrels and sacks are delivered into the holds of ships each day at each port? Or how many sailors there are who could carry a message from a man in a tavern? Or how many sympathisers there are who would be delighted to memorise a message and take that instead? Despenser must have shit in his brain if he thinks this will work,’ Simon growled.
‘It was the king who ordered it,’ Baldwin reminded him gently.
‘And we know who advises him,’ his friend countered.
‘There is another thing, Simon. I am very worried.’
‘About what?’
Baldwin was silent as he gathered his thoughts. Then, ‘Old friend, I have no secrets from you. We both know that the queen was popular down here. She had so many manors, she had the rights to mining – much of Devon and Cornwall have been her allies. And so, if she decides to land in England again, with a small force, where would be most logical? And if she were to land on our coast, who can say which path her men would take? I do know that I do not wish for my wife or children to be in that path.’