No Law in the Land

Chapter Fifteen

Jacobstowe

Agnes had not rested. Her night had been spent alone with Bill’s body, alternately weeping and praying. She was sure in her mind that she would meet him again, when she went to heaven, but the thought that she must now endure her life without his companionship and lazy grin was so hard to accept.

The idea that he had suddenly been stolen away from her … Her lovely man was dead. His spirit had fled. It was so difficult to understand how God could have allowed it to happen. When the priest came to try to comfort her, she had listened to his empty, foolish words, and had slowly closed the door on him. What could the man say to her, to her who had lost her darling husband? The priest had never known the love of a man for a woman. He had no concept of the bond that two people could feel, especially one that was mortared by the sharing of the creation of a child. He had no idea how love of that sort could elevate a person’s soul. And so he had not even the faintest understanding of the utter loss that the death implied.

As she grew aware of the sunlight filtering through the shutters over her windows, she forced herself to her feet. There was still her work to be done. Mercifully Ant was still. He had slept all through after crying himself to sleep on her lap as she sobbed. It was natural for a child to understand the misery and devastation of such a loss. Entirely natural.

She went outside, pulling the shutters open, then scattered some grain for the chickens, letting them free from the coop, and took some scraps to the pig, before returning to the house and setting about starting the fire.

It was a miserable morning, and the day would grow worse, she knew. But she must do all she could and keep the house running. There was nothing else for it. It was what Bill would have wanted.

‘Mistress?’

She was feeding Ant when the knock came, and soon Hoppon was in the room with her, his cap in his hand, while other faces she recognised peered at her from outside. Why did all these churls live, when God had taken her own precious darling?

‘You’ll be needing someone to take Bill up to the church, we reckoned. You want for us to help?’

She looked at him with fleeting incomprehension. There seemed no reason to take Bill anywhere, and then her mind allowed her to recall that he was dead. Anger flooded her, anger at God, at Hoppon, at the world — but most of all, anger at her husband. How could he dare to die and leave her and Ant all alone? How dare he!

‘Yes.’ She rose, shivering, and suddenly felt as though she must fall down. Her legs seemed as insubstantial as feathers. ‘Yes, please help me,’ she said, in a voice bereft of all but misery.

Sourton Down

Up at the edge of the moors, Simon felt more cheerful. It was always good to be here on the high ground, looking down on God’s own country. West he could see Cornwall, with Bodmin gleaming in a burst of sunshine, while northwards was the lowering mass of Exmoor.

‘So what’ll you do, then?’ Sir Richard asked as they breasted the hill’s western flank and could stare ahead towards Meldon and Oakhampton.

‘I think I have little option. I’ll ride on to where the bodies were all found, up near Jacobstowe, and then see if I can learn anything about the men who died. With that sort of money involved, somebody must have seen or heard something. If a small gang of felons took it all, they’ll have been celebrating ever since.’

‘True enough. There never was an outlaw born who had the sense of a child,’ Sir Richard said. ‘A man would have thought that most of them would realise that sprinkling coins about the wenches in a tavern, when all their lives they’ve been as wealthy as a churl on alms, would make a few people suspicious. But they never do.’

‘Are you riding straight back to Lifton?’ Simon asked. He felt a slight trepidation. The idea of spending too much time with the coroner was alarming, because the man was undoubtedly one of the very worst he had ever met when it came to giving him sickly hangovers. On the other hand, he was a loyal, amiable character with a shrewd mind, when it was free of thoughts of wine, women and food.

‘I was thinking about that. I wouldn’t want to leave you all alone. Performing an inquest on a matter such as this is hazardous, my friend. And you are all alone.’

‘I am here!’ protested the man behind them.

This was the clerk whom Cardinal de Fargis had commanded to join Simon in order to record all he learned. Brother Mark was a skinny little fellow, but he had the humorous face of an imp. He reminded Simon of some of the figures that adorned the church at Lydford. But he did not merit consideration as protection against a man such as the one who could beat a reeve to death, let alone a gang that could kill a band of nineteen travellers.

‘Yes. I would be glad of someone to help defend me,’ Simon admitted.

‘What of me?’ Brother Mark asked plaintively.

Sir Richard sniffed. ‘I suppose it is fair to say that since this money was the king’s, and was deposited with his officers, it is reasonable to suppose that I would be failing in my duties to him were I not to aid you in this inquest.’

‘I can do that!’ Mark stated with vigour.

Simon agreed. ‘It is plainly the king’s service. It would be to his advantage were you to help me in this matter.’

Sir Richard nodded, looked westwards reflectively, and then threw a glance at the clerk behind them. ‘What? No comments? No arguing? No protestations of your ability to help us?’

Mark gave him a look of contemptuous disgust. ‘I see no further reason to waste my breath.’

‘Good. Perhaps the rest of our journey will be all the more peaceful,’ Sir Richard said with a chuckle. ‘In the meantime, we should hurry ourselves if we are to make our way to a house in time for dark. Simon, you know this area better than me, I am sure. Which is our best direction?’

Simon pointed. ‘Straight up to Oakhampton, thence to Abbeyford. If there is anything to be learned, it will be up there.’

Their journey took them a little past the middle of the morning. Before noon they were already ambling along the roadway through the woods.

‘A good old wood, this,’ the coroner remarked, looking about him with an appreciative eye. ‘I would like a place like this myself. A man could make a lot of money from it.’

‘Yes. The people about here have good incomes,’ Simon agreed. ‘The charcoal burners make good use of it, and there is always enough for the coppicers to gather.’

That was obvious. No matter where they looked, little glades had been harvested. There was little that would go to waste in a wood like this. Even as they rode along, they could see wisps of smoke from some of the charcoal burners’ ovens. Simon glanced about him, and then picked a broad track that led them in among the trees.

The path was straight at first, and then curved to the left and round to the right until they were almost riding back the way they had come. At the end of their path there was an area of an acre or so, in which the trees had been cut back. Coppicing was an ancient art, and Simon could see that this little clearing was well maintained. The coppicer would cut back the stems from the trees initially when they had reached seven or eight feet in height. Naturally the trees would try to grow back by thrusting up with two or even three more stems, and after six or seven years the coppicer would return to harvest these too, and so the round of harvesting would continue. Each year enough poles would be taken for making handles, for building, for cropping to make faggots for fires, or for charcoal.

At the far edge of the clearing there was a charcoal burner with his tent. When making an oven to roast the poles for charcoal, it was essential that the burner remained at the site all day and night, watching and carefully helping the fire to cook the coals without ever catching light. A week’s work in cutting, and another in carefully building the fire could be wasted by a little carelessness. Simon had worked with charcoal burners in his time, and knew how difficult it was to make a good oven. The burners would build a large pyre of wood, with a chimney in the middle. About this large circular oven they would then construct a massive earthwork, first smothering all the wood with ferns, and then layering soil over the top, until the whole heap was a man’s height and twice a man’s height in diameter, with only a small hole in the top. At last when all was ready, and it was plain that there were no other holes from which any smoke could leak, they would drop burning coals down into the midst of the chimney, and once the fire was well caught they would block the top with more ferns and earth.

That was the fascinating time for Simon. He would watch as the smoke started to leach out from the soil. Sometimes there was a disaster, and a hole would appear in the earth, and when that happened, the burner would quickly shovel more soil over the top, sometimes sprinkling water too, to keep the soil together. Otherwise the entire crop of charcoal would merely burn like wood, and the burner would find only ash remaining when he opened the oven.

Today there was a fine smoke coming from the sides of the oven. It was a perfect-looking pile, Simon thought. Once the smoke had stopped fighting its way from the chamber inside, and the whole oven had cooled, the burners would leave it for some days before breaking into it to retrieve the cooled coals from within. That was more than a week and a half away for this one, by the look of the smoke.

‘God speed, friend,’ Simon said.

Charcoal burners had a reputation for being surly, but in Simon’s experience it was generally the result of living so many months each year away from all other people. They tended to spend all their time in the woods, and the chance of meeting another human was remote.

This man was not like the others he had known, though. At the sight of Simon and the others, he grinned broadly and doffed his cap respectfully. ‘Masters, you are welcome.’

‘Master, God give you a good day,’ Simon responded.

‘Here he always does, master,’ the burner said with a laugh. ‘He gives me water to drink, food to eat, and all the wood I need for my work. What more could a man ask?’

‘You are alone?’ Sir Richard asked.

‘Aye — but there are others in the woods within a short distance,’ the burner said, and his smile became a little fixed, as though he was wondering whether these men had come to rob him.

Simon soon soothed him. ‘Friend, I am sent with the good coroner here to learn more about the deaths of a number of men here some weeks ago.’

‘You’re a coroner? You weren’t here for the inquest.’

Sir Richard shook his head. ‘I am the coroner for Lifton, for the king. However, there is a religious aspect to this attack, and Cardinal de Fargis has asked us to enquire into the details.’

‘Those poor travellers? Ah, that was a bad business.’

‘Did you see them?’ Simon asked.

‘When the coroner came, I went to witness it. I thought it was right, you know? Seemed wrong for the folks there to have all been killed and no one go to tell their story for them.’

‘Were there not many there at the inquest?’

‘Oh, most of us went in the end. But people weren’t going to at first, because of nervousness.’

‘Why?’ Simon asked.

‘Why do you think? There was a man there, a priest, I think. He was a crophead. They’d cut his eyes out. Coroner said it might have been before he was killed. Who’d do a thing like that? A bunch of outlaws big enough to kill so many must have been a large band indeed. And any man who goes to try to help catch such people is likely himself to be killed. No one wants to take risks. But we who live here in the trees have an appreciation of how to treat people. And we have strength in our numbers.’

Sir Richard nodded. ‘Yes, and the best thing is, you’re all used to working with your hands and sharp tools, eh? Any felon trying his luck with coppicers would find himself down one arm! Eh?’

‘Well, there is that,’ the man said equably.

Sir Richard grinned and looked about them. He knew perfectly well that there were other coppicers near, and almost certainly all watching him. ‘You can tell them to loosen their bowstrings, friend.’

‘I expect you were asked much about the night of the attack?’ Simon said.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you hear any attacking men that night? Passing up this road, say? Returning in a hurry?’

‘No, there was nothing. The bastards must have come from north of here.’ The man was very convincing in his certainty.

‘Can you show us where the folks were all found?’ Simon asked.

The man eyed him and the others for a moment, and then gave a nod. ‘Yes, master. Follow me.’

Furshill

The journey to Simon’s house was at least a half-morning’s ride, while that to Exeter was a little longer. Baldwin spent the early morning rushing about gathering necessary items ready for his journey, bellowing orders to the servants and his wife, before taking a late breakfast with Edgar.

‘Do you go to Simon’s house with all the speed you can muster,’ he said. ‘I am depending upon your speed, Edgar. You must tell Simon about his daughter’s husband and her predicament. Tell him that the sheriff is an ally of bloody Despenser, and that the man is no friend to Simon. You can also tell him that Edith’s father-in-law heard the sheriff say that it was her fault his son was in gaol.’

‘Are you sure Simon should hear that?’ Jeanne asked quietly. ‘He may not take heed of caution if he’s told that.’

‘I can calm him when he reaches Exeter,’ Baldwin said. ‘For now, I deem it essential that he understands the full danger of the situation. Tell him all that, Edgar, and then ride with him.’

Jeanne said, ‘Would it not be better for you to go to Simon, Baldwin? Then you could try to dissuade him from any rashness.’

‘My love, how could I stop him? This is his daughter and her husband we are talking about. I would not think even the bishop himself could persuade Simon to remain quietly at home, say, for his own security.’

Later, as he rode quickly along the faster road to Exeter, he was reminded of those words.

It was impossible to ask a man to remain safe at home when his daughter was in danger. And Baldwin was convinced that Edith was in trouble of a very serious nature. If the sheriff saw fit to take her husband, the repercussions would be extremely grave. For the man to behave in this manner, he must be certain in his own mind that he was secure. Despenser — perhaps the king himself — must have assured him that he was safe.

There was another aspect of the affair that gave Baldwin some pause for thought. The comment about poor Peter only being in danger because of Edith and Simon had been made to Edith’s father-in-law, and that surely meant that the sheriff’s words, and the implicit challenge in them, had been intended to be relayed to Simon. Baldwin’s fear now was that there was a trap being set for Simon in Exeter. And he intended to be there for Simon when he arrived so that he could protect his friend.

He made good time. For once the weather had held, and as he clattered down the Oakhampton Road to the old inn at the foot of Cowick Street, and began to thunder at a canter over the massive bridge, past the chapel of St Edmund on his left, past the reek of the tanner’s works on Exe Island, and up to the great gate itself, he was aware of an increasing fear for Simon’s safety.

His luck held at the gate, too. The porter here, Jankin, was a younger man, with the cheerful disposition of a tavern keeper with a new brew to sell. His brown eyes were a light colour, with a little red in them, and he had the appearance of a man who was never far from a happy thought. He looked as though he would be more at ease before a fire with a jug of strong ale near to hand. ‘Sir Baldwin, God speed!’

‘God give you a good day,’ Baldwin returned. ‘Good Master Jankin, have you see my friend Simon Puttock’s daughter this morning?’

‘Mistress Edith? No. She hasn’t passed by here. I know her well.’

‘Are you sure? She was sleeping at my house last night. You have heard of her husband?’

‘Peter, the son of Charles the Merchant? Yes. The whole city knows about his arrest. There is no sense in it, Sir Baldwin. Nobody can make sense of that. He is as rebellious as a sheepdog. He wouldn’t hurt the king for anything.’

‘No, I agree. But he has been accused, so must be arrested. These are hard times, my friend. Edith was so fearful, she left my house before light this morning. I assumed she came back here, but you are sure she didn’t pass by?’

‘I would have seen her. There’s been no sign of her today,’ Jankin said with certainty. ‘Could she have ridden to the north gate instead of mine?’

‘It is possible. I didn’t consider that,’ Baldwin admitted. ‘It is rather out of the way, for someone riding from Furshill, unless she managed to cross the river much further north.’ He frowned. That was unlikely. No, it was more probable that she had not come here, but had ridden straight to Simon’s. She would want his support and her mother’s sympathy.

He left the gatekeeper and rode on as fast as the streets would allow him to the carfoix, and then turned into the cathedral close. He wanted to ask for the bishop’s aid. Baldwin had the strong impression that this affair could only be resolved with negotiation, no matter what the reasons behind the arrest were.

The bishop’s palace stood at the south-western edge of the close. Baldwin rode straight to it, and soon he was in the bishop’s hall.

Bishop Walter sat at his desk as Baldwin strode in. Baldwin crossed the floor to him, kneeled, and kissed his ring. ‘My lord bishop, you have heard about Simon’s daughter and her husband?’

‘The city is all talking about it,’ Bishop Walter said.

‘Simon will be on his way here already, I expect. My lord, you must help us to have the boy Peter freed. You know what Simon’s temper is like. We have to stop him from doing anything that could exacerbate matters.’

The bishop put his hand on Baldwin’s sadly. ‘You don’t realise, Sir Baldwin. The sheriff has the full support of Despenser. I am afraid I don’t think there is anything you or I can do. The boy will have to remain in gaol until the sheriff decides to put him on trial. And we just have to pray that when he is put to trial, the sheriff and his friends don’t present false evidence or have others to lie in court. But,’ he added heavily, ‘for my part, I believe that such a hope is forlorn.’

Abbeyford Woods

Mark stopped his mount and looked about him as they approached the clearing where the bodies had been found. He had a faint superstitious wariness about the place. It felt … foul. There was some repellent atmosphere that lingered, he was sure. It was the sort of feeling that would make any monk recoil, and he held back, aware of a curious and deeply unpleasant feeling in his belly, as though he was preparing himself for the sudden appearance of a series of demons and ghosts, all ready to assault him. It was, for a moment, supremely terrifying.

And then the moment passed. A single beam of light from the sun burst through the clouds and trees above, shining down into the clearing, and Mark smiled, because he knew God had chosen to ease his mind.

The knight was not happy with him. Well, he wasn’t happy to be here at the beck and call of such an arrogant pig of a man. He had the eating habits and drinking capacity of a hog. Mark had seen him at their short breakfast, guzzling ale until it ran down his chest, mingling with his beard and staining his tunic, chewing while drinking. Utterly revolting. Clearly one of those lower-level rural knights with little in the head and less in the heart.

Mark blew out a long breath and cast about him. The most important thing was the money. That chest with the coin inside was a large casket, fettered with iron and padlocked. It was too much for one man to carry, much too much. It was on a cart, with the archers set about it and two men-at-arms on horseback to give added protection. Not that they had succeeded, of course, he thought sadly, thinking of Pietro and Brother Anselm. He didn’t know Pietro de Torrino well, of course. The portly old fellow had only arrived here in Devon with the cardinal. Brother Anselm was different. He had been at Tavistock for an age. A quick-witted, humorous fellow, Anselm was always playing practical jokes. If it was true that he was dead he really was going to be sorely missed. He was one of those characters who made the misery of cold nights in the church in mid-winter almost bearable.

There was a flash from the sun glinting on metal, and Mark wondered what it might be. Probably an arrow lying on the ground, its energy spent. The men who attacked here must have expended a number of missiles to be able to wipe out so many speedily enough to ensure that none escaped, he thought.

It was a most distressing thought. The idea that a group of men could willingly set themselves to attack a band of wanderers, slaying men, women and children. The charcoal burner had spoken of the nineteen people found here, but he denied that he had heard anything. Almost certainly he was lying — but who could blame a man for being silent on such a matter? As he had said, few would want to expose themselves to the risk of being attacked from men of this sort. And yet no one appeared to know who was responsible, nor where they came from.

He caught another glimpse of the sparkle from the sun. On a whim, he kicked his little beast on, and rode over towards it.

The thing, whatever it was, lay in the midst of a thorny bramble, and he was most reluctant to do anything about it. In truth, he was just thinking about leaving it, when he noticed that a large stick had fallen from a tree nearby. It appeared so fortuitous, that he wondered whether God had been leaving him a most virile clue, and he groaned to himself, dropped from the saddle, and picked up the stick. With it, he was able to push aside the worst of the brambles and see what it was that had glinted so fascinatingly.

There was a thong of leather set in it, and he hooked this with his stick and tried to lift it free, but naturally the thong was untied. It had been removed from a man’s throat, after all. Mark had to push down the worst of the brambles, and then risk reaching in to grab his prize. It was a marvellously wrought crucifix, a most rare item, made from silver, with tiny enamelled decorations up and down each part. Truly, it was a beautiful piece of workmanship.

‘Mark? Mark, where are you?’ he heard Simon call, and he poked about a little more in the brambles, hoping to find something else, but there was nothing.

‘Look. I found this over there in the bushes,’ Mark said. ‘I know this piece of work. It was Pietro de Torrino’s. It’s not English-made. I think he brought it with him from his homeland.’

Simon picked it up and sighed. ‘Yes. I suppose they took it from him and dropped it as they left.’

Mark nodded. The coroner, however, was less convinced. ‘What do you mean? Over there? That’s far from the way in or out, ain’t it?’

It was Mark who frowned and said, ‘So what? Perhaps he took it off himself and flung it away so that no one would take that which he most prized?’

Simon said, ‘Sir Richard, do not forget — we were told that the monk had been tortured. His eyes were put out before he died, so they thought. If that was so, perhaps they were questioning him about where he had thrown his cross?’

‘If they saw it fly through the air, they’d have known. Oh, I suppose the bastards could have just been trying to make him suffer for throwing the thing away. They wouldn’t have found it in the middle of the night, though, would they? No one with a brain would think they could in a wood like this, eh?’

Simon weighed the crucifix in his hand. ‘You’re sure this was Pietro’s? Well, if so, you’d best keep hold of it and take it to the cardinal. But it is curious that it was thrown away. A man like Pietro, surely, would value something like this so highly that he wouldn’t fling it into the woods? He would hold on to it, hoping that he might escape death from his captors. Not many would willingly slay a priest or a monk.’

‘You have a point,’ Sir Richard said. ‘But slay him they did, and the cross was in the bush, so read me the riddle, Simon.’

‘If I could do that, I would be a coroner or keeper!’ Simon chuckled. ‘But I’m a mere seeker of the truth in my own little way. Come! Let’s see what else may be found.’