No Law in the Land

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Nymet Traci

The yard was clear enough for now. All the castle’s men had repaired to the buttery with the ale they’d confiscated from the alewife transporting it to Bow, and already half the men were singing a series of bawdy songs. Their rough singing could be heard all about the courtyard, and the fact that they seemed already to be drunk was reassuring, but he couldn’t just jump on top of them all. That was impossible.

He stood indecisively for a while, outside the hall, listening to the raucous babble from inside. Up on the walls, he could see more men walking about. They weren’t drunk. And from a quick glance, it was clear that there were at least four of them up there, two at the front, and two chatting in the farther corner. Security today was not a major concern.

There had been times before when Wattere had felt incompetent. Most recently was earlier in the year when he had been told to evict a man, and shortly thereafter had found that the tables had been turned on him. And here he was, seriously contemplating making a lunatic bid to save that same man’s daughter. His wounds stung him with renewed vigour at the mere thought — and yet he was not persuaded to turn from the decision he had taken up there in Edith’s room.

‘You all right, old man?’

A youth of not yet twenty, he was. He had a face erupting with spots that gave him a humorous appearance, but any suggestion that he was prone to such an easy temperament was discounted by the unfeeling expression in his cold grey eyes. He was a little taller than Wattere, but although Wattere felt fairly sure that he could best the lad in a fight, he was not here to pick quarrels. Instead, he made a muttered response, ducked his head and walked over to the stables, where he went to his mount and checked the beast over. There was cause for bitterness there. The horse had not been brushed and cleaned from their last journey, and there was still dried mud clinging to his forelegs.

There was no excuse for not looking after a horse. It made him angry to see his own animal being ignored. But here he was in a strange castle. It would not be sensible to cause a fuss. Especially when he was trying to conceive a plan to help Edith escape. So he merely gritted his teeth, walked to the corner where the brushes were all stored, and grabbed a couple. While making long, regular sweeps over the horse’s back and flanks, he watched the activities in the yard.

He had no idea how to save the child. Perhaps she could simply hide from the guards, and later, when they had gone to find her, she could make her way … But there was nowhere to hide in that little chamber. Nowhere at all. It was impossible. There was nothing he could do here all alone to try to rescue her. It was just ridiculous to think that he could.

Rubbing down the mount, he allowed his thoughts to turn to the more sombre reflection that it was entirely due to his obedience to his master that she was here. Sir Hugh le Despenser had always been a good master to him, though. Reliable, in all ways. If a man betrayed him, he knew what he could expect, just as a man who provided good service for him knew that he would be rewarded. He had himself enjoyed Despenser’s favours over the years. And now he was here in a castle in the wildlands of western Devonshire with a beautiful young woman, having delivered her, so it would seem, to be toyed with by the son of a friend of Despenser. She would soon be raped or dead, if he was any judge.

He had performed similar tasks in the past, capturing women and men so that they could be held hostage, but never before had he known this kind of despair. In the past, they had been treated moderately well, and released when they had served their purpose. He wouldn’t have procured them had he known that they would be treated in the way that Edith would soon be.

A wave of nausea washed through his body like a cramp. He almost fell to the ground, and had to grab hold of the stall’s bars and breathe in deeply, cheeks hollowed and loose, his belly complaining, as he felt the threat of all the men about the place. This was lunacy! He couldn’t think to help her. If he did, and he was discovered, as he must be, he would be ruined. Despenser would never forgive him, even if he managed to escape, and he couldn’t. If he was to try to fight all the men here, he would die. But he couldn’t escape without silencing at least a number of them. It was impossible.

He had just come to this conclusion when he looked up to see Basil striding towards the hall’s door. As he reached it, he glanced up to the right, towards the part of the hall where Wattere knew Edith was being held.

It was enough to steel his resolve. ‘You bastard,’ he muttered. ‘You sodding bastard!’

He gripped his sword hilt and would have marched across the yard right there and then, perhaps to die, trying to protect her from her assailant, but then he saw two men up on the battlements and thought again.

If he ran in on Basil raping Edith, the only result would be his death. That wouldn’t help Edith at all. Better to persuade Basil to leave the hall.

Suddenly Wattere’s eyes narrowed as he cast about, looking around the stables. At one end was a heap of straw. It was enough to make him march purposefully along the stalls.

He would give Basil a diversion he would never forget.

When the door was thrown wide, Edith had not expected it.

She was sitting on the stool by the window, gazing out at the hills to the west, filled with longing for the broad open moors and freedom. Anything would be so much better than sitting here in the chamber with nothing to do but brood on her misery, filled with dread for her future. With a start of guilt, she had just realised that she had hardly thought about Peter at all for the last day, and now she was half sobbing at the thought of him languishing in the foul gaol at Exeter. She had been there before, and she knew how disgusting such a cell would be to her fastidious husband. She only hoped that Wattere could help her somehow.

Jerked to the present by the sudden eruption of noise, she almost fell from her stool. Then, seeing Basil enter, she sprang to her feet, stepping behind the stool, reaching for the dagger. But before she could grip it, Basil had slammed the door shut, and now he advanced to her, a smile fitted to his face as he set his head to one side, surveying her as a knight might study a newly won town. ‘Oh, but you’re a pretty one. Will you give me a kiss?’

‘I will do nothing.’

‘Oho, you will, lady. You’ll bed me tonight, I think. Hold! You think that your husband will come to rescue you?’

Her expression was so bleak at that sally that he laughed again. ‘You know about him, then, do you? Ah, it is a shame that he’s so busy just now. Answering questions, no doubt. They say the new sheriff has some inventive ways of getting the answers he needs, you know. Probably aided by men of Sir Hugh le Despenser, I’d imagine. He was always creative, so they say. Still, you’ll probably be able to recognise your old man when you see him again. So long as they don’t treat him like a traitor, anyway. You wouldn’t want to see him hanged, eh?’

She could hardly keep the vomit at bay. There had not been any capital trials for traitors since she had moved to Exeter, but she knew what they entailed as well as any. She had been told that the sound of the headsman’s axe striking the body into quarters was the same as that of the butcher’s cleaver as it divided a hog’s carcass.

‘Of course, if you were to be nice to me, I could get you released. I might even help you to get to the sheriff and persuade him to release your husband.’

‘You would-’ She realised her error and closed her mouth sharply.

‘If you were to be nice to me, yes. I might just do that. Would you like a pact? You swear to comfort me, and I’ll swear to see you released and ride with you to Exeter. How would that be?’

Edith stared at him. ‘I cannot. I am married. How can you ask me to betray him with you?’

‘Oh, it’s easy, lady. You see, if you do, then you will go to see him — but if you don’t, I may have to take you anyway. Because there’s not much you can do to stop me, is there? If I want to, I can take you. I just prefer to have you willing. And I think a little strumpet like you will enjoy it anyway. So that’s an end to it. Will you submit?’

‘I won’t.’

‘You’ll have to give yourself unwillingly, then,’ he declared lazily. He began to step into the room towards her, but as he did, there was a clamour from the yard area, with loud shouting from the gates. He stopped, hesitated a moment, and then muttered a curse and hurried out, bolting the door after him.

Edith slowly and shakily made her way to the stool. Feeling around for it, she felt as sickly and ancient as an old crone. Soon she had her rump on it, but she could only sit and stare at the door as though he might spring in through it again at any moment.

The torture of not knowing what to do for the best made her mind feel as though it must shred into tiny fragments of hope and despair.

It took them little time to mount their horses and make their way to the castle. Simon rode in front, with Baldwin and Sir Richard a short way behind him. Edgar had for once forgone his accustomed post a little behind Baldwin and rode to one side to protect his flank, and Mark trailed behind them, demanding to know what made them think that the girl was in the castle anyway.

‘Tell that man to be silent,’ Sir Richard muttered to Edgar as they rode, but before long Mark had realised that his comments were not going to win him any friends and was content to mutter to himself.

The road was well used, Simon saw, and as he came around the bend and could see the castle again from this direction, he was struck by the careful positioning of the place.

With trees cut down in all directions, it would be very hard to assault. That was certain. It was not a true fortress, in that there were no towers at each corner of the wall, but the place was strong nonetheless, and the battlements would mean that any attacking force would have its work cut out. Simon had not been in a siege, but he had heard Baldwin talk about such affairs, and the idea that he could bring a force here to hold the castle and make it surrender filled him with horror. For Edith would be inside, and at the least she would suffer with the garrison. It was even possible — if not likely — that they would make a show of her. Perhaps raping her to shame her and Simon, threatening to kill her, or torture her … The possibilities were appalling.

He found his speed slowing as the thoughts whirled through his mind. ‘Sweet Jesus, Baldwin, what can we do to get her out if she is in there? It is a fortress. And they must have plenty of men inside, too. What could we few do?’

‘Let us first find out whether she is truly inside,’ Baldwin said reassuringly. ‘Then we can decide what to do.’

‘Yes.’

They rode up to the gates, and waited for a challenge. ‘I am Keeper of the King’s Peace. Open the gates in the name of the king!’ Baldwin bellowed when a face appeared over the parapet.

There was some while before another man arrived to peer down at them. This was a swarthy-looking man with the face of a surly felon, Simon reckoned. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, churl, and I am Keeper of the King’s Peace. I demand that you open the gates immediately.’

‘Well, I am son to the knight who owns this manor. You have no right to demand anything of us, sir. We have business to which we attend. If you wish, you may return tomorrow and we shall consider your request.’

‘We believe you are holding a woman hostage here. We would speak with the castle’s owner.’

At this there was a loud step on a wooden walkway, and soon another man was staring down at them. ‘I am Sir Robert de Traci. You say you are Sir Baldwin de Furnshill?’

‘Aye. And this is the King’s Coroner, Sir Richard de Welles. We are here-’

‘I heard,’ Sir Robert said drily. ‘You think to come here to my home and accuse me of such behaviour? I am surprised.’

‘If the woman is not here, could you not let us inside so that we can verify the fact? We can then continue in our search for her. She was brought this way. She was seen along this very road, in the company of a wandering felon by the name of William atte Wattere,’ Baldwin lied. ‘Do you know of him?’

‘Wattere? You say he is a convicted felon? How would I know him?’

‘Where else would this road lead?’ Baldwin asked, pointedly staring at the track that continued after the road had petered out just behind the castle.

‘It leads nowhere. But since the woman is not here, surely your witness was mistaken,’ Sir Robert said. ‘In any case, I do not have time to investigate the matter further.’

‘Wait! Sir Robert!’ Baldwin cried, but the other knight had already left the walkway beneath the battlements.

Only his son remained, and now he laughed at the men before his gates. ‘What, would you storm our walls, masters? Eh? We have a force in here that is plentiful enough to defend them, I assure you. But feel free to try, if you must!’

‘Your name, fellow?’ Baldwin said. It was hard to keep his horse under control. The beast was spirited, and he could tell that his rider was trying to control a rising anger.

‘I am Basil of Traci, fellow,’ Basil sneered.

‘Then know this: we shall leave here now, but if I learn you have lied to me, I will return with the king’s posse. And when I do, I shall raze this castle to the ground, with you inside it if necessary. If one hair of that maid’s head is harmed, I will visit every indignity and pain upon you personally. I will see you crawling to plead for mercy, boy! If she is here, beware!’

‘Old man, you need your meal. I’ve heard that aged fools can be driven mad if their food is late. You are raving,’ Basil said. ‘Go home and eat, and ease your poor old head.’

Baldwin’s jaw set, and he whirled his mount about before he could listen to any more taunts. In a fury, he set the horse’s head to Bow, and rode off along the road.

Simon could see his inner rage, but he could hardly restrain his own fury. Baldwin had failed him, and had failed Edith. All Simon knew now was inner turmoil and a clammy fear that his little Edith, his daughter, was in dreadful danger.

And he could do nothing about it.