The miners had been grateful as always, and today when he’d returned to pray again by that mire, some men were there with a present for him. Now, walking back to his home beside the bridge, he must go carefully with the weight upon his back.
Admittedly a hermit was supposed to eat frugally, and many eschewed flesh altogether, but at present he had a good-sized mallard weighing him down, shot by a miner’s sling, and there was no problem with that so far as he was concerned. It was another form of alms.
He reached the clapper bridge over the Teign and began the climb up toward the great stone circle on Scorhill. An odd arrangement, he always thought. A sequence of massy moorstone lumps arranged in a broad circle. Pausing to look it over once again, for he often paused here feeling that it added something to his contemplations, he glanced back the way he had come.
It was a glorious winter’s day. The sky, for the first time in weeks, was clear of clouds, and the sun shone palely on the moors. All was still. Even the wind had abated, as though the elements were ashamed of their behaviour the previous day, although the evidence of the rains was all about. From here, Surval could see it. Rivulets, pools, tiny streams and waterfalls glinted and shone in the bright sun. Most were sharp and blue, discrete little patches of sky fallen to earth; others were pure silver, as though the tin that lay beneath had suddenly sprung to the surface.
Surval took a deep breath and let it out slowly, watching it shiver, his own personal cloud. This view was always calming to him. In other parts of the moors there were fires and noise from the tinners who were digging, smelting and working the ores, here it was peaceful. Miners had worked this land years ago, but all the available metal had been dragged from the earth a long time since. Now this was only a trail for peat-cutters, farmers and suppliers who led their packhorses along these damp, tortuous paths.
He turned east and made his way back towards the bridge and his home. The way soon took him down among the trees, and the sunlight was sprinkled between the fresh leaves like a green mist. On a whim he took a northern path. It would take a little longer, but in this glorious weather, he didn’t care.
It was Surval’s favourite time of year usually, but now he was worried; had been ever since the death of the girl. Such a terrible crime – so stupid, so brutal. It was the act of a coward, a man who would punish those smaller, younger or weaker than himself just to satisfy his own lusts or his desire for power over anyone.
‘Oh God, forgive me!’ he shouted suddenly, throwing back his head in his despair and staring with agonised eyes at the sky. ‘Please, God, as You love men and share their pains, take my life. Please! Don’t make me suffer so much! I killed her, I admit it. I am the foul murderer of a young woman because I wanted her so badly, and… and…’
That was it. To murder a girl who was scarcely more than a child was unforgivable. God Himself couldn’t forgive him. And while he lived, the constant reminder of his murder would be here, the smell and sight of it would assail his senses, driving him mad. He felt more than a little mad. Was it a surprise? And all the while the foul atmosphere grew about him. It mattered not a whit how many good deeds he essayed, for that crime was always going to be there in his mind. That knowledge, the knowledge of his guilt, would not be dispelled by the sun or the wind: it would take more than them.
As he walked down the hill, near to the castle at Gidleigh, he heard a rattling, then shouts and the noise of hooves clattering over cobbles, approaching.
With a cold dread in his belly, he realised what that noise heralded, and he stopped as the row approached him. Soon he could see Esmon at the head of a force of men, all mounted, some with bows and crossbows, all armed with swords and long knives, ready for a fight.
‘Out of the path, fool!’ Esmon roared, and hurtled past.
The men followed him, none giving Surval more than a glance, as though he was an irrelevance. Soon they had all passed and the sound of their hooves faded into the distance. If it were not for the thick gouts of mud and horse shit which had been flung against him, he might have doubted that they had ever been here.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Come on, cretins!’ Esmon was feeling the excitement thrilling in his veins as he led the party on. He caught a glimpse of a shapely pair of buttocks bent over in a field as he passed, and wondered whose they might be, but he had no time to stop now. Whoever she was, the slut would have to wait until later. He had business to attend to first, but when he was done, aye, he’d be coming back this way and would look out for her.
Putting all thoughts of women from his mind, he slapped his mount’s backside with his switch, urging the great stallion onwards. The beast was as black as coal, with one white star on his forehead and a single white sock on his front offside, and in this light he gleamed like oiled leather. He was a weapon, a trained and powerful warhorse.
He shouldn’t be needed today, Esmon told himself. That was what he’d told his father earlier when they had spoken about this attack.
Sir Ralph had been disturbed, almost confused, as though there was a blasted great weight on his mind. Old fool! He had been like that since the girl Mary had died and that shit-head priest had bolted. It was a bastard to have lost the priest – that must be what Sir Ralph must be thinking: that it was shameful to allow a killer to escape. Esmon couldn’t care less. Life was too short for regrets – especially on a day like today.
He had sixteen men with him, fifteen men-at-arms under Brian of Doncaster, all of whom had remained with him after fighting for the King and the Despensers. Afterwards Esmon had regretted coming back down here to Devonshire. The battles, the charges, all those available women in the taverns, the hand-to-hand combat had made life worth living. It was what a man was created for.
Even this was exhilarating. The chance of a good ride, rich wagons, gold. All the things that a soldier needed. Perhaps there might be a woman, too. There often were with these little troupes of merchants and farmers. At least there would be Wylkyn, as he told himself. It was a shame that the attack on him the day before yesterday had failed. The fool of a miner had run off into the middle of Raybarrow Pool, the filthy mire near the commons, and he’d drowned there. All Esmon had wanted to know from him was, where was that whoreson brother of his: Wylkyn – the man who knew all about Sir Richard Prouse’s murder. Esmon had to kill Wylkyn. He couldn’t get away again. He’d escaped Esmon before and run to the moors, but today he’d have him. Esmon had heard that Wylkyn was here, with this party, and Esmon was going to put an end to the matter once and for all.
When they came to the hill that led from Throwleigh to the open moors, Esmon slowed to a trot. Foolish to make too much noise, he thought. It would only alarm and forewarn the folk whom he wanted to meet.
There was a slight sense of superstition, a faint feeling that he had been here before, but that of course was different. That was the day that Mary had died.
He hadn’t ever intended her any harm. To him, killing a girl who was so attractive was an appalling waste of beauty. Far better to learn what it was that she craved, and then provide it in return for her body. There was never any need to worry, because the only thing he would never promise was his hand in marriage. That would have been stupid. Poor Mary. She was so pretty, so lively and God, she was sexy!
But he hadn’t gone past her that day intending to hurt her. That day he’d been riding up here to go and waylay Wylkyn again. He had been told that the miner was going back up to his mine again after spending a little time in South Zeal, and Esmon had ridden up along the roadway that straggled along the side of Cosdon Beacon, up to the open moors, but he found the wrong man. It was Wylkyn’s brother, not Wylkyn. The fool had refused to give them information, or to plead for his life, and instead he ran away, straight into the great bog. A foul, repellent death.
It hadn’t put him in a good mood when he rode back along the roadway. If he had been in a better mood, perhaps he would have been more polite to the girl.
At the top of the hill, the track became less muddy, more a grassed path. Here there were many cart-tracks and hoofprints marring the turf. Pools of water lay all about on either side. Esmon held up a hand to halt the men and listened carefully. Vaguely in the distance he could hear the squeaking and rattling of many carts, and he grinned at Brian and his men. Brian gave him a short nod. It seemed he was out of sorts this morning, but Esmon didn’t care. The rest of his men were fine. For the most part, they were busy patting their mounts, watching the sky, checking swords and knives, easing the blades in their sheaths, one testing his knife on the ball of his thumb, dragging the corners of his mouth down and nodding to himself.
Esmon led them into the shadow of a thick stand of trees and waited.
It was his father who’d always led these raids previously. Esmon was the eager lieutenant, the boy, but never again. He’d as much experience as his old man – more, probably. There was no need for elderly fools to lead men – no need and no place. It was work for a younger man, a man with fire in his bowels and courage. A man like Esmon.
Sir Ralph had lost his sense of priorities. Wylkyn had to die, and Sir Ralph should have been here to make sure of it, but instead he was at home mourning that girl. There were plenty more. Perhaps, Esmon wondered idly, he should tell his father to go and see young Margery… But no! Sir Ralph was probably too frail now.
Esmon conveniently forgot that his father had yanked him from his horse only the day before, all but dislocating his shoulder and dropping him in the mud, because right now, with the feel of the wind in his face, the noise of his horse’s hooves, the sense of power conveyed by leading a warrior band, he felt invincible. His father was too old for this kind of excitement. He had remained sitting in his hall, chin cupped in his palm, and waved his free hand dismissively as soon as the boy arrived to say that the convoy was leaving South Zeal along the Throwleigh Road. Pathetic old woman. Sir Ralph was losing his edge.
It was as he was thinking this that Esmon realised they were passing the place where he had chased Flora. The memory of his shame at being dragged from his horse returned to him, but so did the rage; it was a wild anger, all the worse for the fact that he couldn’t satisfy his desire for revenge. Petty treason against his father was unthinkable. All this was because of the girl, Flora. The old man was trying to protect her, and Esmon wondered why. Sir Ralph had known of enough other girls his son had taken: half the villeins’ daughters were fair game to him.
The noise was closer and Esmon found his thoughts leaping forward to the coming action. He could hear the distinctive squeak of one cart which was plainly in need of maintenance. Almost there, Esmon gloated. So close. And then he saw a horse appear, walking stolidly, dragging a well-laden cart behind it.
Esmon pulled his sword free and crouched expectantly in his saddle. This was the critical moment. Before him, the land rose gently to a flat plateau, which was concealed from here by the trees, but Esmon could visualise it with ease; he’d lived here much of his life, and he knew every field.
On the right flank of the travellers the land rose towards the moors; although it wasn’t steep, it was scattered with moorstone so that a cart would find the way hard. To their left was a long stone wall that effectively cut them off, their only means of escape was forward, through Esmon’s men, or back. That was hard to achieve for a man on a cart. Turning it took time, and before they could manage, Esmon’s men would have cut off their retreat. That gave Esmon and his men free rein. When they charged out from their concealment, if they were swift, they could cut off any escape. Some might evade them and try to bolt up the hill towards the moors, but even if they managed to do so, it shouldn’t be too hard to catch them. There wasn’t much chance of a heavy cart outrunning a horseman, but it would be irritating to have to waste time herding them together again. He didn’t need that sort of grief, so he waited, the blood humming in his brain, the soft, seductive tingle of sudden action thrilling every nerve and fibre in his body. War: it was what he had been trained for from birth.
The first carter sat hunched on the boards, his head jolting with the cart’s motion. Gradually more carts and men came into view, trailing behind the first, spread over the grass so as not to follow the tracks of previous wheels and break the surface too badly. That could mean a cart getting mired, perhaps damaging a wheel or axle.
They were so close Esmon could all but feel the breath of the leading horse. Nearly time, nearly… When the first two carters had passed, that would be the perfect time to spring the trap, he thought – and then he saw the carter snort, hawk, throw back his head to spit, and suddenly catch sight of the men watching him from the still darkness of the trees. The carter choked, the phlegm catching in his throat, and Esmon knew that he had only a moment to retain the benefit of surprise. ‘
Now!
’ he roared, and spurred his charger on, waving his sword about his head.
The horse exploded into life. Esmon felt the cantle of his saddle pound into the small of his back and then he was flying forward at a tremendous pace, and he was shrieking, and his men were howling and bellowing, while the carters grabbed reins, trying to move from their path and escape. One was stuck when his horse reared and the traces snapped, another tried to turn his mount up the hill, but that was a vain hope. The heather and furze there were thick enough to clog the wheels of a cart.
Further back were the packhorses. These were Esmon’s target. His plan had been simple: his men would ride out a little further up the hill than their quarry, and then they would drop down on the carters’ flank. Total surprise should work in their favour, for they had never attacked this far from Gidleigh. Usually they sprang their assaults nearer to Gidleigh or Chagford, and that was why so many merchants had changed their route to the market. An attack so far from help was a terrifying experience for travellers.