‘Yes. That bastard has some questions to answer,’ Baldwin said. Not only about this latest incident, either. According to Huward, Esmon was the leader of the men who had robbed the carters on their way to Chagford, and according to Surval, he was motivated by the need to punish a murderer. Not that Baldwin could count on either making their accusations in court. Any denunciation against their own lord must result in their being punished severely, and without it, there was little likelihood that Baldwin could secure Sir Ralph’s or Esmon’s arrest for the murder of Wylkyn. Baldwin must find a means of ensuring that someone might appeal them, but also he must persuade a jury that they would not be in danger if they decided to uphold the conviction. He would have to call juries from the nearest four vills to secure a conviction here, he reckoned.
‘This is a curious matter, Simon,’ he murmured. ‘Consider: the death of the girl, then the murder of the miner, and robbery of his companions, and now we have this careless attack on you. Why should someone want to harm you? Especially that fool Esmon. Most people seem to think that Mark is responsible for the girl’s death; but some think it might have been Sir Ralph or Esmon, and many believe that Esmon could have killed the miner; now he tries to ride you down.’
‘He won’t do that again,’ Simon swore softly. ‘When I meet him next, I’ll teach him to try to hurt a Bailiff of the Stannaries.’
‘You must be cautious, Simon. He has many men-at-arms here,’ Baldwin warned. ‘If he feels strong enough to rob carters, he will feel strong enough to destroy you as well. Perhaps he fears you.’
‘Fears me? Why should he?’ Simon scoffed.
‘You represent the Stannary. If he could say that you were killed in an accident, it is possible that the death of Wylkyn might go uninvestigated.’
Simon merely grunted, but Baldwin knew he was not foolish enough to risk escalating problems while they were all in Sir Ralph’s castle.
‘I never had time to send to Chagford!’ Simon realised.
Lady Annicia’s soft, slightly slurred words silenced both. ‘Come. Let me see this man’s wound. What has happened to him?’
Baldwin and Simon exchanged a look. There was nothing to be done immediately. They went to speak with the Lady of the castle.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Alan, Saul’s apprentice, tipped the bowl back and felt the cool draught wash down his throat, taking away the dust from the journey as it passed down his gullet. That was the trouble with riding in a line with other carters when the roads were drying. Wherever there was dust, everyone swallowed it. Refilling the bowl, he could sense the warmth spreading from his belly through his body. It was just as though someone had lighted a fire in his stomach.
‘Careful, boy. You’ll get drunk again!’
Alan gave a pale grin. His calmness had almost returned now that they were in the small town of Chagford. They had at least managed to sell most of their goods at the market, and Saul himself was delighted with the prices he had won for his cheeses: the men here paid good sums for produce because Chagford was so far from civilisation and the roads leading here were appalling. Most of the buyers were miners who had little money, but they were happy to pay for Alan’s stock of iron blades for shovels, for his spikes, adzes and hammers.
‘After the last couple of days, I wouldn’t mind getting drunk.’
There were so many people in this inn it had taken an age to reach the large plank of wood which was the bar. All about them, men sipped their ales or ciders while keeping an eye on all these foreigners. Men who lived in market towns like Chagford might need the money that carters and buyers brought, but that didn’t mean they had to like the folk that brought it, and several of the older men in this tavern looked as though they would be happier if all the market people would clear off. Traders were welcome in the market, but not here in the taverns, where all they did was block access to the bar.
It wasn’t only the older locals who eyed Alan and his friends askance, either. There was a wealthy-looking fellow in one corner who appeared as unhappy about the noise and commotion as any. He sat on a low stool, his legs thrust out before him. Although he was clad in an expensive-looking tunic of some velvet of crimson, it had faded. His hosen were of a soft green material, but were heavily bespattered with mud of red, brown and black, and his boots were scuffed and stained. A thick grey riding cloak with a leather hood sat rolled into a bundle on the floor beside him, and his upper body was encased in a leathern jacket, cut long to fall to the knee.
His dark eyes looked unpleasant and cold; his was the sort of face which Alan thought would suit one of the men who had swept down the hill at him on the day that the raid had taken place. He had the same blank look of a man who was used to dealing in death. Alan shivered.
Saul drained his pot and belched, wiping a hand over his beard. ‘There will always be footpads about, boy, and it’s not worth worrying about them. Leave that to the Sheriff. You concentrate on what you’re good at: helping me buy and sell for a profit.’
‘So they can rob us again?’
‘If you have a brain you won’t come that way again,’ Saul said thickly. The cold which had assailed him on the way here had developed, during their incarceration at Gidleigh Castle, into a real snorter, and he ran his nose over his sleeve again, leaving a glistening trail. His eyes lowered to the table and his voice dropped at the same time. ‘I don’t think you should go talking about it too much, though. They’re powerful men, them who robbed us.’
‘I see. Let the buggers get away with it, you mean?’
‘Get involved in something like that, and you’ll never get away from the town, boy. You’ll have the Keeper of the Peace demanding you turn up in his court, the Sheriff too, and then you’ll have to come back when the Justices return. Do you want all that?’
The idea of accusing men the like of Sir Ralph made Alan feel queasy.
‘That’s right, boy! Just leave things as they are.’
Alan nodded into his bowl. Sir Ralph was a knight, and knights could do much as they wanted, because the law hardly affected them. Esmon had been seen by many witnesses leading the attack on the carters, but that wouldn’t have much impact. He was the son of a knight – what, would anyone expect a knight’s lad to be held in gaol ready for the Justices? Of course not. Esmon would be out of court in minutes, his father’s friends putting up money to meet the cost of his bond, and then he would make sure that the Justices would have no one to accuse him in their courts: he’d personally murder Alan, or maybe he’d simply pay one of his men to do it. Either way, he’d be safe and Alan would be dead, which was not a prospect that appealed much to Alan.
The tavern was raucous, and they had to raise their voices more than once as they talked over the robbery. It was a small place, built of solid moorstone, and stood a short distance from Chagford’s marketplace, which was why at present it was filled with shouting, laughing and swearing miners. Two wenches were negotiating their services at one corner, Alan could tell, because the crush of drunken men was thickest there, and outside at the back there was a cock-fighting pit, with a regular turn-around of protagonists, so the noise swelled and broke from the cheering and cursing spectators there, making conversation still more difficult.
‘This isn’t our
Frankpledge
, after all,’ Saul added persuasively. He had to shout to make himself heard.
‘But it means letting a man’s murderer go unpunished.’
‘Oh, sod that! I never saw a man die. Maybe he escaped! If it makes us more secure, leave it alone, that’s what I say.’
It was as he spoke those fateful words that Alan happened to glance across the room. The well-dressed man was staring at them both with a frown, as if displeased at something he had heard. Slowly, to Alan’s concern, the man pulled his legs back and stood. He picked up his bundled cloak and walked over to Alan and Saul.
‘I heard you talking about letting a murderer go. I don’t think you should do that.’
‘None of your business.’
‘Isn’t it?’ The man pulled his jerkin back to show his sword and long-bladed knife as he took a stool and sat on it. ‘I would have thought that a murder would always prove interesting to the King’s Coroner. Now, suppose you two tell me about this murder of yours.’
Lady Annicia was gentle as she and a woman-servant washed Hugh’s bloody face and scalp. With the help of Godwen, who held Hugh’s head still, she shaved it before inspecting the gash.
Simon was easy about this, but Baldwin felt decidedly uncomfortable. It was one thing to see a dead body being prodded and poked, but to his mind it was quite another to see someone who was still alive being treated like this. Or maybe he didn’t like to see a personal acquaintance lying there. Whatever the reason, Baldwin couldn’t face remaining in that room. When Annicia stood and mumbled about fetching herbs, he was first to the door to open it for her.
They didn’t speak. Baldwin took deep breaths of the clean, smoke-tinged air as he trailed after her. There was a faintly sour sweetness on the air, and he realised it was her winey breath. He hoped that she had found time to doze after the court session, because he didn’t want Hugh to be harmed by being tended to by a drunken angel. As he considered this, she walked to the small room built on the side of the gatehouse, and opened the door.
When he peered in, he gave a low whistle. ‘A marvellous stock.’
‘Hmm?’ she asked, glancing up. ‘Oh, yes. It’s Wylkyn’s store. He used to make all sorts of things to ease Sir Richard’s pain.’
She sounded as though her mind was elsewhere. Baldwin set his head to one side. ‘My Lady, are you well?’
‘Well? Yes – why?’
‘My Lady, I merely noticed that you seem a little distracted, that is all. If it is something with which I can help, please feel free to ask.’
To his consternation, her eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘I am a foolish woman, Sir Knight. I was told a secret today, and just because I was in a fey and foolish mood, I told another. I fear that my husband will be very displeased with me when he hears. But no, there is nothing you or anyone else can do to help me.’
She was still slurring her words slightly, but it was hard now to see that she was drunk, apart from a certain deliberation in her movements. Baldwin watched her carefully as she moved among the potions, but she looked safe enough. Only very sad.
‘Sir Richard died suddenly, I heard.’
‘No. He was in his bed for a few days, but then he often was. Poor man. I think he gave up in the end. He knew he couldn’t keep this place.’
‘His back and face must have been constantly painful.’ Baldwin glanced at some drying leaves, and then he frowned.
‘Not just them. He had an awful case of gout in his good leg, which made it impossible for him to walk. That was why he took to his bed in the first place.’
‘Gout? That wouldn’t kill him.’
‘No.’ She had found the jug she wanted. She shook some powder into a cloth, then added some more from a second earthenware pot. Transferring them to a mortar, she began grinding and mixing the powders with the pestle. ‘He died, I believe, when he had a spasm, and that was that.’
‘Oh? I had thought he died from a fever.’
She squinted at him. ‘Not exactly. He had a bad case of gout, to which he was prone, and took to his bed. Then a mild fever attacked him and he was ill for some days.’
‘What were the signs of his illness?’
‘Blurred vision,’ she said, ‘I remember that. Then he grew giddy and complained of his head aching, and slept a great deal, but then he fell into delirium. In the end he had great convulsions, and during the last one, he died. I don’t know what could have done this to him. If he had cut himself, I should have thought it was one of those fevers, and I would have expected an inflamed limb, but there was no sign like that. Perhaps we should have bled him more. With such diseases, it is hard to know the best cure. And he had suffered so much during his life, with all his twisted and badly-set bones. Even eating was a torment, because of his mouth.’
Baldwin remembered Sir Richard’s face. It had been all but sliced in two by a massive sword-blow. One eye was gone, and his jaw had been shattered on that side. His hideous injuries can have given poor Sir Richard no peace from the moment he received them.
Baldwin glanced at the leaves again. Gout could be helped, he knew, by the leaves of henbane, but life could be ended: henbane was a fierce poison.
When they returned, rather than staying in the gloomy hall, Baldwin walked to Thomas, who stood watching the yard outside.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked the Constable.
Thomas shrugged. ‘I’m here, miles from my home, far from my wife, and stuck with
him
.’
Baldwin didn’t need to glance in the direction of his jerked thumb: he knew Thomas was indicating Godwen.
‘Come with me, then,’ he said, and strode out into the yard.
‘What do you want out here?’ Thomas asked, trotting to keep up with Baldwin’s long stride.
‘Roger Scut. I want to know what he thinks there is in all this for him.’
‘Him? He’ll see money. That’s the only reason he ever puts himself out for anything. Money or gold for himself.’
‘How could he see money in this place?’ Baldwin wondered.
Thomas glanced about him. ‘He’ll see some advantage, he always does. Same way as he always fleeces people – like poor Jack.’
Baldwin was listening with only half an ear to his mutterings, but the mention of the groom in Crediton made his ears prick up again. ‘What is all that about Jack? You said that Roger Scut is his landlord and that Jack’s rents are always going up, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. Jack is one of his serfs, but he used to be successful until Scut took over his demesne. Scut inherited the land and all the free or servile tenants on it.’