No Law in the Land

Chapter Two

Woods north of Jacobstowe

It had been a quiet night for Roger. The scene in the coppice last morning had shaken him more than he wanted to admit even to himself. Afterwards he had run quietly away. Before long he came to a vill, and crouched down, hiding. There was a woman in a little yard, calling and clucking to her chickens, a tall, strong woman, buxom and attractive, and he waited, watching her with something akin to longing, until she was done and went back inside, and he could hurry past and on to the north.

No one wanted to be found near a scene like that, especially if a stranger to the area. Because if any man was ever to be thought a dangerous murderer, it was always easier to think such things of foreigners. Roger had no wish to be captured by men determined to find anyone who could suit the description of a stranger and outlaw.

But it was not only the desire to put as many leagues as possible between himself and any posse that drove him on. It was also the memory of that appalling sight.

In the past he had been used to such pictures of horror. There had been plenty of bodies to see after the French invasion of the territories about Saint Sardos, those of men and women, and none of them would come back to haunt him, he knew. Not even the little tableau of the two children would affect him. He had found them under a set of rugs, as though they had been hidden there with the heavy woollen material thrown over to conceal them, a little girl and a boy, neither more than four years old, if he had to guess. The boy had been cut almost entirely in half, as though someone had swung an axe at his breast. The girl’s head had been broken by a club or mace; her death would at least have been quick. Then the cloth had been cast over them again, untidily. Carelessly. They had been dealt with, so their covering could be returned.

There had been many children slaughtered in Guyenne in the last months. Yes, he had come back to England to escape those sights now that the French officials were tightening their grip on the lands about Guyenne, but such things happened, and he had seen them, and he knew he was strong enough to survive this just as he had survived the others.

No, the deaths themselves were not enough to give him sleepless nights or even to unsettle him. But he was disturbed now as he thought back to the scene.

As he had entered the coppice, he had been prepared for it all. The smell of death lay over the place in the mizzly air like some foul miasma from a moorland bog, and he knew what he would see as soon as he reached it.

He had stood silently a while, absorbing the images that came to him. A cart upended, the shafts pointing at the sky; a second collapsed where a wheel had been snapped away; two horses dead, one on its side, the other on its back, all four legs in the air, arrows in head and flanks, the rider nearby, with more arrows in his back. And another man near him, his head missing entirely. A woman … There were so many there, and none of them made any impression on him. He was a fighter — he had seen it all.

Walking among them, he had found himself casting about carefully, for that was what a man did after a fight, but clearly there was no profit to be had from the bodies down here. All had been killed and their property taken from them with their lives. From the number of men here, there must have been some seven or eight carts just to cope with their goods, or a number of packhorses. So many travelling together for safety, thinking that there would be strength in their numbers. He would have thought that most were moderately wealthy people, but one group in particular was different. The man near the horse, he looked like a fighter. And not only him. Roger would guess from their build that some six or eight of the men here were warriors. They didn’t look like peasants, that was certain. The clothing, the boots and shoes, all pointed to people who were better off than the normal vill churl.

Roger had squatted near a man’s body. The fellow had six arrows in him, and there was a wound in his eye like a stab wound, as though someone was going about the place and making sure of all the injured.

He had the appearance of a fighter: he was fairly strong in the arm, with some scars to prove that he’d been in more than the average number of fights. There was no mail or armour, but when Roger looked at his wrists and neck, there were signs of chafing. He had worn some simple armour, which had been stripped from him, if Roger had to guess. No man-at-arms would be unaware of the value of mail, and it would be taken from the fallen, either to be altered for the new owner, or for sale.

Others, when he looked, had similar marks. One was just the same, with the proof of armour and helm. When he added them up, he reckoned these two were men-at-arms, and eight others looked like bowmen. They each had the characteristically powerful muscles on their backs that were the inevitable result of regular practice as archers. From the look of them, these could well have been a force together, perhaps protecting something, he thought. And then he came across another figure.

This was no warrior. He had the belly of an abbot, and the jowls to match. A tonsure in need of renewal, and the ink on his fingers, pointed to a clerk of some form. And yet he had been utterly despoiled. His feet were bare, but the flesh was soft and unmarked. Not a man used to walking barefoot, then. He had a chemise, but no cloak or surcoat, which looked out of place, and no jewellery. However, his fingers held the marks of rings. When Roger ran his own fingers over the first joints, he could feel where the skin was raised slightly in calluses about the outer edge of the rings the man had habitually worn. To his surprise there was no wooden cross about his neck. However, it was his face that jolted Roger more than anything else he had seen there that day, more than the proofs of theft. Because this fellow had been mutilated. Although he was blond, Roger couldn’t tell what colour his eyes were, because both had been taken out before he had had his throat cut. His death hadn’t been good.

When he studied all the figures, there were nine who were clustered not too far from the monk, and these had two things in common: they all looked as though they were fighters of some sort, and they all had multiple arrow wounds. Only one was different — a fellow who had been stabbed five times in the back, and who was lying further away from the others, nearer to the perimeter. Surely he was killed first. Perhaps he had been the sentry?

Yes, this was the sort of picture he had grown used to in Guyenne, but not here, not in England. Still, where men lived, others would die. It was a rule of life. And while it made him sad to see children killed, it was also natural. Children followed the armies into battle, children worked, and some died. But while he was ready for that, it was the sight of the other little figures that had caused him to pause and stare with shock.

A puppy. A small black and white puppy, and its mother, she slashed and stabbed, the pup with a broken neck, both lying near a roll of torn and ruined clothing, as though they had been killed defending their master’s belongings. When he saw them, he suddenly found the breath stopping in his throat. It was so unnecessary. So pointless. Men and women, even the children too, could perhaps be viewed as threats. After all, it was possible that they might later be able to recognise the perpetrators of this violent little action and bring them to justice. But the dogs? There was no need to kill them too. He bent and picked up the two bodies, tears flooding his cheeks, cradling them for a long moment, before setting them down gently at the foot of a tree some way from the carnage of the camp.

It was that, more than any of the human bodies, that made him pause and stare about him, as though seeing all the bodies for the very first time. Someone had chosen to kill this little group. No, not just kill them — wipe them out entirely.

But why?

Abbeyford Woods, south of Jacobstowe

It was late that evening when Art Miller returned to the camp. And now he had at least some information for Bill Lark and John Weaver. He refused to speak until he had seated himself before their fire. Once comfortable, with a pot of steaming cider before him, he began to tell all he had learned, his voice quiet and reflective.

‘Seems there was a group of ten from Tavistock in one party, them and two monks. Everyone remembered them. One monk was really foreign, they said, and had such a thick accent hardly anyone could listen to ’un without they felt mazed. T’other was English, and a cheery fellow, with a pretty little dog and a puppy he held in his robe. Only the snout stuck out, they said, and he made the children laugh to see him. They arrived in Oakhampton a couple of days ago, and were asking about the best route to leave the town. They met with a party of travellers. One was a young family, mother, father, two children.’ Art glanced at Bill, shaking his head. ‘All told how happy and cheerful the children were. Lovely, lively little brutes, they said. There were others, though: four pedlars and tranters with their goods. One fellow from east. Apparently he said that there were dangers on the Crediton road, and the travellers were persuaded to go with him. It was him took them all northwards.’

‘Did anyone know where he reckoned the problems were?’ Bill asked, frowning.

‘No one heard him say, but there was one merchant I spoke to, a fellow called Denfote from up Exbourne way, who said that Bow had grown hazardous for travellers. The new lord there is keen to take money from all who pass his demesne. Denfote said he would always bypass it now.’

‘Did he know this man’s name?’

‘Yes — Sir Robert de Traci. Apparently him and his son have taken to demanding tolls on any roads about there. They’re a nuisance generally, but their arrogance, he said, would lead to them killing someone soon, so Denfote thought.’

‘Seems he knows how to predict the future, then,’ Bill said, shaking his head. ‘So how many were there in total?’

‘There were the twelve from Tavistock, the little family of four, the pedlars and this guide. All told, twenty-one.’

Bill considered, sipping at his hot drink. ‘That’s interesting. Since we had only nineteen bodies.’

‘That was what I thought you’d say,’ Art said.

Nodding, Bill stood. ‘I’d best take another look about this place, then. Make sure there’re no more.’ He hesitated, frowning. Then, ‘Art, you come too, eh? Maybe my eyes have been missing something.’

‘All right, Bailiff,’ Art said. He drained his pot and joined Bill as the bailiff began a circumambulation of the area. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘I reckon this looks like a simple attack of outlaws,’ Bill said.

‘So why don’t you think that?’

‘I said-’

‘Oh, I know what you said, Bill Lark, but I’ve known you longer than anyone else, and I don’t think you believe it any more than I do,’ Art said easily.

‘No.’ Bill was quiet for a little while, and then he began to tell Art about the blood, the man who surely couldn’t have walked back to join the others after all that loss. ‘I think that makes it look different.’

‘Best way to make sure a man’s quiet is to hit him hard in the kidneys or liver,’ Art offered. ‘Stab him there, and he soon loses his blood and dies.’

‘Aye. The others didn’t matter. But this one man was clobbered hard. That makes me think.’

‘What?’

‘Makes me think that maybe he was a guard, and the fellows knocked him down so that they could surprise the rest of the party.’

‘Why do that?’

‘To make their attack all the more complete? Perhaps they wanted to catch someone in the group — the man with his eyes taken out?’

Art winced. ‘Poor bastard. And it’s odd, too.’

‘What is?’

‘This man who was telling them to take the other route, he only had one eye himself.’

Third Thursday following the Feast of the Archangel Michael^*

London

Sir Richard de Welles had a simple faith that whatever was going to happen would happen. It was all in the hands of God, and for that reason there was little point in worrying.

Once he had been a great deal less fatalistic. When he was a youth, he had held the belief that he could alter his life and make things better by dint of special effort. But then, when his wife had died, his attitude changed. She had been killed by a fellow he had trusted, and an event like that was bound to be enough to change his attitude.

So today, as he rode with the others under the imposing entrance to London Bridge, he did not concern himself with idle fears about the interview with the king. He had the comfort of knowing that he had done nothing in France of which he should be ashamed, and that knowledge gave him an assurance that he could see the others did not feel. If anything, his mood lightened as he jolted along on the great bridge, looking up at the flags fluttering, seeing the glorious painted buildings under which they rode. The horseshoes clattered noisily on the timbers of the drawbridge, and he could look down to see some boys playing on boats, shooting down by the massive piers of the bridge supports.

‘Look at them, Master Puttock,’ he said happily.

Simon only grunted in response, and Sir Richard smiled.

‘Simon, whatever happens when we see the king, there is nothing we may do about it now. Best thing to do is to enjoy the journey and leave the future to itself.’

Simon nodded, but there was no apparent ease in his manner. Not even when one of the little boats struck the point of a pier and shattered. All watching guffawed with laughter to see how the two lads inside were tipped out into the foaming waters, but not Simon or Baldwin. It left Sir Richard feeling sad that he could not lighten the mood of his friends.

There were plenty of them, after all. Although Baldwin, Simon and he had no servants with them — only Baldwin’s beast, a great black, brown and white brute called Wolf — the bishop was a different matter. He had clerks, including his nephew, a squire called William Walle, three other men-at-arms to serve him, and his steward John de Padington. With these and the packhorses they led to carry the bishop’s belongings, they formed quite a cavalcade.

Their way took them from the city’s gates and west, down along Candelwryhttestrate, but they had to turn southwards where a wagon had shed its load, and Bishop Walter took them along narrower roads that Sir Richard didn’t recognise.

‘You know these lanes like I know my own manor,’ he said as they rode along Athelyngstrate towards the cathedral church of St Paul’s.

‘I would be a sorry bishop if I didn’t know this city well,’ Bishop Walter replied. ‘I have spent so much of my life here in London. The king saw fit to make me his lord high treasurer some years ago, and since then I have spent much of every year here — apart from those periods when he has discarded me,’ he added with a thin little smile.

‘Why would he do that?’ Sir Richard asked.

‘Because my advice was unwelcome. The last time he removed me from office it was because he split the treasury into two — one to deal with the north, one for the south. That would be a fair way to deal with the problems of the treasury, separating it into two halves in the same way as the Church is split between Canterbury and York, but only if there was a corresponding increase in staff to cope with the workload. Such administrative corrections are necessary once in a while, after all. No man could dispute that. However, the king is ever seeking greater efforts by all without considering the impact on individuals. And that is what happened here. He divided the one institution into two parts, and expected these two new courts to be able to cope with the same number of staff as the one court employed before. It could not work!’

‘That is why you resigned the post?’

‘Yes. I will not be a part of an effort like that.’ The bishop’s tone was sharp, but Sir Richard was sure that it was merely a reflection of his concern at the impending interview with the king.

That there might be another reason for the bishop’s shortness did not occur to him until they were near the cathedral itself. There Sir Richard saw Bishop Walter’s eyes turn this way and that, and he didn’t seem happy until they had left the cathedral behind them. It seemed to Sir Richard that there was something about that area that was distasteful to the bishop.

They rode on down the hill to the Ludgate at the bottom, and then continued on the Fletestrete. Sir Richard saw Baldwin stare down at the Temple buildings, which Sir Hugh le Despenser had taken for his own only recently, and glanced over them himself. There was not much to interest him, though, and soon he found himself studying the Straunde as they rode on towards Thorney Island and Westminster.

The buildings here were all grand. Too grand for Sir Richard’s taste, if he was honest. He required only a simple dwelling. Space for himself, a few mastiffs and raches, perhaps a mews for a pair of hawks, and that was about it. Here, though, there was an apparent need for ostentation on all sides. And when they reached the Temple Bar and passed beyond, the houses were even more extravagant.

‘We shall rest here a while before continuing,’ the bishop said as he turned left just before St Clement Danes.

‘Where’s this, then?’ Sir Richard asked, eyeing the hall with some suspicion. It was even more splendid than the other places they had passed, or so he felt.

Bishop Walter was already passing under the gatehouse. It was the steward, John de Padington, who turned in his saddle and eyed the knight with an amused look. ‘It’s the bishop’s house, Sir Richard. He built it himself so that the bishops of Exeter would always have a comfortable billet in London.’