A shudder ran through his frame and he had to control an urge to sob. He felt desolate, lonely and forlorn, and fear was making his bowels loosen. Terrible to think that he could beshit himself through terror. That was not something he’d have thought of when he was sent here, that he’d be in such fear of his life that he could soil himself.
He had hoped that the friendly cleric, Roger Scut, who had vowed to protect Mark from all enemies and persuaded that Keeper, Sir Baldwin, to come back with them, might have kept up a conversation with him on the ride back here, but of course it wasn’t fair to expect that. Roger was supposed to be preventing a miscarriage of justice, making sure that Mark was saved from the rigours of the local court and instead was appealed before the Bishop’s own, thus he had maintained a dignified silence.
God, but it was so cold. All the long hours of his escape, he had never once had the chance to warm himself, and since capture, he had been able to spend only a few moments in front of the fire in the inn at Crediton before they whisked him away on the long ride back here. Even when they had been forced to resort to an alehouse because the river was in spate after the rains, they had seated Mark near the door, far from the fireside. He was a suspected felon: he didn’t deserve comforts.
There was a rattling and when he looked up, a few stray pieces of damp stuff fell from the trap door and into his face. Coughing with revulsion, spitting bits of straw, he looked up in time to see that a ladder was being lowered and his heart suddenly felt as though it might burst with joy. Someone was going to let him out of here! Someone had taken pity on him! He was about to be saved and given food, drink, a place near a fire! Oh, my God! Flames, heat, warmth! He couldn’t stop the loud sobs that racked his breast, and he grabbed at the ladder, clambering up it as quickly as his frozen fingers and toes would permit.
At the top, he was already babbling his thanks when he was blinded by the light from a torch. Covering his face, he squinted about him. ‘My Lord, I am so thankful… That place… Might I beg a little warmed wine? My mouth… I am so famished…’
Without warning, a fist slammed into his kidneys, and he gasped as he went down, his head striking the cobbles with a hammer blow. A boot kicked at his back, then his neck, and he curled into a ball while feet pounded into his already frail body.
‘Think you’re going to escape, priest? No one wants that!’
He recognised that laughing voice: Esmon, the son of Sir Ralph. There was yet another kick at his arse, catching his cods and making him whimper.
‘You thought you were going to get away, didn’t you, priest? Thought you’d get to Exeter. Perhaps you thought you’d be safe if you brought your friends here, that you’d be allowed to get to the Bishop’s palace if they spoke for you in court? Well, we aren’t having that, little priest. You aren’t going anywhere. You will die right here, whether today or tomorrow, I don’t care, but you’re dying here.’
Only one glimpse did he catch of the men. There, at the front of them, watching while Esmon beat him, Mark saw Sir Ralph, his face twisted with hatred.
‘Father,’ Mark said, but no one listened, and no one cared as he screamed, cradling his head in his arms as the boots and fists hammered into his soft and unprotected body.
Least of all Sir Ralph.
Chapter Seventeen
Baldwin and Simon were up early the next morning, demanding that Piers come and take them to Wylkyn’s body. To Hugh’s disgust, he was ordered to leave his warm bench and follow his master as soon as Piers arrived, while Baldwin’s two watchmen were permitted to remain in the tavern’s cosy hall. They asked Piers to join them while they completed their breakfast, and he sat a short way from the table. Roger Scut was with them, eating quietly and watching them all suspiciously. He was still bitter that the chapel had been fired.
‘You want some meat or bread?’ Baldwin enquired.
‘No, thank you, Sir Baldwin,’ Piers said. ‘I’ve eaten already.’
‘Some of us eat even when we’ve already taken our meals,’ Simon observed, glancing sidelong at Roger Scut.
‘I have not!’ Roger said, flushing angrily. ‘I have only just woken!’
‘You had a meal here with us last night when you had dined earlier with Sir Ralph, didn’t you?’ Simon accused.
Roger Scut chose the safest approach of saying nothing.
Baldwin studied him thoughtfully. ‘Tell me, Scut – what was it like there in the castle?’
‘A sumptuous meal,’ Roger Scut said, ‘served by attentive and thoughtful servants. Any who were slapdash risked a thrashing, so all were careful. I didn’t like the Grace being said after eating, though. I prefer to hear it said beforehand.’
‘I don’t care when he says Grace, and I don’t care how attractive the food was, how careful the servants, nor how elegant the surroundings,’ Baldwin said irritably. ‘I meant, did you see any signs which showed why we weren’t allowed into the castle?’
‘Nothing. The place was neat and tidy, and his carts were all moved out of the way.’
‘So! You’re the Reeve?’ Simon asked. ‘Do you know why my friend was rudely refused permission to enter the castle?’
Piers shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Oh, Master, the ways of great knights are beyond me. I’m only a simple peasant.’
‘Really?’ Baldwin asked, one eyebrow lifted slightly.
Piers was glad to escape further questioning until they were all mounted on their ponies and ambling northwards to where Wylkyn had been found. Roger Scut remained at the inn with the two Constables, apparently sulking at the untoward allegation that he ate too much.
‘You raised the Hue and Cry when this new body was found?’ Baldwin asked.
‘Yes, sir. We advertised the murder as soon as we could, but there’s been no news yet.’ Piers sighed glumly. ‘We’ll be fined again when this comes to the courts.’
‘You still have some days,’ Baldwin said reassuringly as Piers led them out on the road towards the moors. Once the Hue and Cry was raised, the vill had forty days to find the culprit before they were liable to a fine.
‘Yes, sir, but I fear we won’t find those responsible.’
‘Did you know the dead man?’
‘Vaguely. I am Reeve to Sir Ralph’s Manor of Wonson, and Wylkyn was steward of Gidleigh to Sir Richard Prouse. I saw him sometimes.’
‘The First Finder is honourable?’ Simon enquired.
‘Elias is an honest man, not a thief,’ Piers stated. He recalled the expression on the old ploughman’s face as they spoke about the body and about Sir Ralph. The only illegal behaviour he could be guilty of was assaulting a knight, he thought.
‘Elias again? How honest is he?’ Baldwin smiled. ‘Honest enough to refuse money to find a body?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘He also found the girl Mary’s body, did he not?’
‘I think so, yes,’ Piers said loftily.
‘We know what I mean, then. All First Finders have to pay a fine, do they not? And they must provide two sureties who will also lose their money if the First Finder does not appear in the court. But a man can only be fined once to make sure he goes to court. A First Finder who discovers one body may often miraculously find other dead bodies in his vill. What would be the point of someone else finding a fresh corpse if the First Finder of another would be happy to state that he found it? I wonder how much Elias was paid to find this tin miner.’
‘I am sure that Elias wouldn’t… um…’
Baldwin chuckled softly. ‘There is no need for it to go any further. However, I shall want to speak to Elias and ask him who suggested that he should walk that way when he found the body.’
‘Elias will tell you exactly the same as I have,’ Piers said. He felt a little mournful. It would have been good to be able to unburden himself about Sir Ralph, about Elias seeing him just before finding Mary. Piers was also convinced that Elias knew something about this latest body as well. He had been very shifty when talking about Wylkyn. It wouldn’t surprise Piers to learn that Elias had not been the First Finder.
‘Remind us about this body,’ Simon said.
‘It’s a miner called Wylkyn. I heard his brother died the other day, as well. Fell in a bog. He was travelling down here – probably on his way to Chagford for the market.’
Simon snorted and gazed about them. ‘To buy, then.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Baldwin asked.
‘He wouldn’t come here laden with goods to be sold. Too much risk of being robbed. He probably had only a few pennies on him to buy some flour and a capon.’
‘He wasn’t alone, Master,’ Piers said. ‘He was one of a band.’
‘What happened to them?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Surely the other travellers would protect him – or was it the travellers who killed him?’
Piers was torn. He would have liked to tell the truth, that Sir Ralph and his son regularly beat and robbed travellers, but that might put his own neck at risk. He would be so glad to see Esmon arrested and sent to Exeter Gaol for the next court… but he knew that was unlikely. Judges didn’t gaol knights or the sons of knights. ‘I don’t know. I daresay they were so fearful that they ran straight to Chagford,’ he said lamely.
‘Really? Leaving one of their number dead? But when they arrive, they must surely tell the Port Reeve and call the Hue and Cry?’ Baldwin said.
Simon nodded slowly, studying the Reeve. ‘I think we should send a messenger to Chagford and ask for the men who reported the murder.’
Piers led the two men at a swift pace much to Hugh’s annoyance, for he loathed being on horseback, down one hill and up another. It was at the top of this, a scant mile away, that Piers waved to a lad standing near a blazing fire. As the men approached, Piers could see that the boy was terrified. His hands were shaking and his face was deathly white.
‘What is it, Henry?’ Piers asked gruffly.
‘Father, thank the Good Lord! Christ Jesus, but I was scared!’
‘This is your son?’ Simon asked with some surprise. The lad looked too sturdy in build for Piers, with a strong, slightly round face fringed with a thick, tousled mop of reddish-brown hair. The pallor of his face lent fire to his remarkably bright green eyes.
‘Yes, Bailiff. This is my son Henry,’ Piers said, ruffling his hair affectionately.
‘You look as though you have had a great scare,’ Baldwin said gently. ‘What is the matter?’
‘Sir,’ Henry said, glancing at his father and seeing the nod of approval before continuing, ‘it was the wind which unsettled me, and then, when it got dark, I couldn’t sleep because of the dogs.’
Simon nodded understandingly. ‘Wild dogs and wolves are a nuisance all over the west of Devonshire, just as they are in other parts of the country. Did any get close?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
Baldwin gave him an encouraging smile. ‘You lit a fire, that was a good idea. It would have scared away any animals.’
‘Most, yes,’ Henry said, and wrapped his arms about his chest as though protecting himself from the very memory of the previous night. ‘Not all. One group came close, very close. I thought I might be attacked and eaten, because they weren’t worried about the fire at all.’
Hugh was all sympathy for the lad. He’d spent enough time alone on hills to know how, every so often, a particular noise could frighten you – the way the wind caught in the branches of a tree from one direction, maybe the way that a branch creaked against another. Sometimes it could be just the sound of a bird stirring in the branches, or the awareness of something that couldn’t even be heard, like the grey, silent drift of an owl shearing through the air without the faintest rustle to mark his passing. That could be truly terrifying, Hugh remembered – until you realised it wasn’t a ghost but a damn great bird which might soon carry off a newborn lamb.
Still, Hugh reckoned it odd that dogs would approach a living man when he was near to fire. Flames scared off most animals, in his experience.
‘But you stayed close and protected the body?’ Baldwin pressed him.
‘Oh, yes! I wouldn’t sleep, sir,’ the lad said with some asperity, as though his integrity shouldn’t be in doubt.
‘Good. Then where is this body?’ Baldwin asked.
‘Over there, sir,’ Henry said, pointing.
He was indicating a shallow dip before a wall that surrounded a pasture. Baldwin walked to it, peering all about him. ‘Where?’
Piers shot him a look, then stared hard at his son a moment, before joining Sir Baldwin. ‘He was there, Sir Knight,’ he breathed. ‘Some bastard’s made off with his body, damn his rotten soul to hell.’
‘Yes,’ Baldwin said musingly. ‘So, boy, it seems you weren’t that close after all.’
Simon nodded. ‘Aye – and it would seem that Sir Ralph was quite right, too, when he said we wouldn’t find a body.’
Surval watched the flames of his fire for a long time that morning, on his knees in the dirt like a man praying, exhausted from his exertions the night before.
He had been out most of the previous night, up near the road where Wylkyn the miner had been found dead, because he wanted to go and pray over the poor soul. Wylkyn was a pleasant enough fellow, the sort of man with whom Surval would have enjoyed sharing a pot of ale in the past, especially after receiving that bird. It had been delicious.
Instead he had seen Sampson.
Usually Sampson was content to sit with Surval while the hermit cooked something for him or prayed for him. At such times Sampson would stop squirming and a light like a heavenly pleasure would seem to illuminate his features. Surval always thought that seeing Sampson sitting before his altar, the light from a candle shining on his simple wooden cross, made Sampson look like an angel. He was handsome at those times.
He hadn’t wanted to talk last night, though, and there was no ease in his face. Instead he had stammered and whined, pulling at Surval’s arm until the hermit had gone with him and helped him. Surval hadn’t wanted to help when he realised what Sampson intended, but Sampson explained that Esmon had told him to, and then Surval agreed.