Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

Chapter Nine

Sir Baldwin eyed the plates on the table before him with mistrust. He had long ago given up eating rich foods, preferring simpler fare, but now, at his wedding feast, he had been presented with as complex a mix of pounded, mashed, coloured and spiced dishes as could be found in any palace to satisfy the jaded palate of a royal courtier.

Before him, bowls brimmed with concoctions of the wildest colours: purples, reds, oranges, greens, and some with different mixtures, like the odd-looking dish near his left hand that was quartered white, yellow, green and black. The sight made Baldwin swallow nervously, aware that he would probably have a troubled stomach the next morning.

It was a relief to be able to recognise common foods. To the side of his salt was a dish of roasted thrushes, and beside that, some ‘mawmenny’ – ground mutton in a wine-based gravy, thickened with the minced meat of a fowl and almonds, flavoured with cloves and sugar, and coloured with red dye. There was a plate of blancmange, too: an appetising mixture of veal, pounded and minced, boiled with sweetened almond milk and seasoned with sugar, salt and pepper.

The custard pies were more complex. He had seen them being made: tiny shreds of veal boiled in wine, with sage, savory, hyssop, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and other strong spices and herbs, the whole thickened with eggs before having dates, ginger and verjuice added. The final operation involved pouring the mixture into the small pastry cases, somewhat inelegantly called ‘coffins’, and cooking it.

It sometimes seemed to the knight that the whole basis of the art of cooking for a feast was to disguise even the simplest of foods by adulterating it with so many herbs or spices that the taste buds rebelled. He watched the stuffed capons being marched to his table with a sense of relief. At least there was little the greasy, rotund tyrant of the kitchen could do to a good, plain fowl, he thought.

The cook had been Edgar’s idea. Sir Baldwin would have been happy to have used his own man, who was perfectly capable of turning a spit or filling a pastry case, but his servant wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Not on your wedding day, Sir Baldwin! You can’t let Jack cook for you on your wedding day.’

‘Why not, in God’s name?’ the astonished knight had demanded.

‘You must aim to impress everyone,’ Edgar had protested before seeing the blankness creeping into his master’s eye. If there were any arguments guaranteed to fail with the knight, they were those of the responsibilities of modern fashion. Edgar quickly changed tack. ‘And how would your cook feel, being the only senior member of your household who wouldn’t be able to eat with you in your hall on the day of your marriage?’

Baldwin’s refusal had frozen on his lips. He wanted to enjoy his nuptials, but he also wanted all his people to celebrate with him. It was an ancient tradition, no doubt, yet he agreed with many of the old customs, especially that which demanded that a lord should hold festivities in his own hall with all his retainers about him. The same custom would have dictated that the cook should have performed his duties in the kitchen, of course, but Baldwin was secretly swayed by the logic of allowing his own man a few hours’ relief. If Baldwin was truly honest with himself, he was also of the same mind as Edgar: Jack was undoubtedly competent at manufacturing large numbers of simple pies or roasting whole beasts over the kitchen fire, but when it came to making his new wife feel at home, Baldwin wasn’t so confident.

His eye drifted over towards his temporarily unemployed cook, who sat at the bottom of one of the tables, a fixed glower on his face. Jack hadn’t wanted to be relieved of his duties. When Edgar had informed him that he was to be saved the responsibility of feeding so many people, he had shoved the seneschal out of his way and marched straight to his master. It had taken all of Baldwin’s powers of persuasion to ensure that the new cook didn’t end up stuffed on the table with all the other roasted meats.

Now Jack fixed him with an eye so accusing that Sir Baldwin shifted guiltily in his seat. He smiled at his wife.

‘My Lady, would you like some blancmange?’

She shook her head ruefully. ‘Not now, sir. I’ve already eaten more than I usually do in a whole week!’

Baldwin felt the same. King Edward II had proclaimed in the ninth year of his reign that his subjects should have only two courses of meat, and Baldwin surreptitiously felt his tightening belt and restrained a groan and a belch. This was already the third course, and he was aware of an unpleasant rumbling deep in his bowels. Too many sweetly flavoured foods; too many rich, spiced meats; too much good wine.

Sitting further along the table, Simon Puttock cocked an eyebrow at his wife and jerked his head at Baldwin. ‘I think our abstemious friend is suffering!’

Margaret Puttock smiled at her husband. Simon and Baldwin had been friends for so long now that she could hardly recall the time before Baldwin had arrived in the area, when she and her husband still lived in the small village of Sandford, before Simon was given the awesome responsibility of becoming the Warden’s Bailiff at Lydford.

Glancing up at the knight, she saw him studying a stuffed fowl with an expression that bordered on alarm. He had sliced off a piece of golden, slightly dry meat from the breast, and beneath it had found a thick layer of stuffing, which glowed bright orange in the candlelight. He had the look of a man who, rich beyond all dreams, has only gold in his house, yet who has found that proximity leads to aversion and now seeks to find something – anything! – made of a different material.

Margaret looked away before she burst out laughing, and took another spoonful of the paste on her trencher. It was good to see Baldwin married at last. She had tried to help, introducing the knight to all the most eligible widows and young women in the area, but had failed to find one who fired him with enthusiasm. It was only when he met the tall, red-haired woman from Liddinstone that he had at last succumbed. Margaret did not grudge him her wasted effort; she held only an abiding gratitude that he had finally selected a woman whom she could be pleased to call a friend. It would have been very difficult if Baldwin had chosen someone Margaret had loathed.

‘I only hope he doesn’t fill himself too full of this wine,’ Simon said, taking a long pull from his drink and gesturing to Edgar for more.

‘I imagine his wife will be hoping the same, Simon,’ she said meaningfully, giving his drinking horn a hard stare as Baldwin’s servant refilled it.

Simon laughed and took another good draught. He laughed again as he caught sight of the pale features of the cattleman’s son Wat, who was staring at the food on the table with an expression akin to horror.

The bailiff was in excellent spirits, delighted for his friend, who was happier than at any time since they had met, and filled with the hope that soon his own wife might become pregnant again. He winked at Margaret and set the horn aside for a moment while he concentrated on his food. Simon didn’t suffer from Baldwin’s scruples about food. The bailiff had been brought up on simple fare, and when he was offered special dishes he tended to try everything. Although he could feel his belly beginning to rebel slightly, there were several bowls he had not yet investigated and he was determined to remedy that deficiency. When his friend caught his eye, Simon waved happily, still chewing, and saw Baldwin raise an eyebrow in sardonic amusement.

Baldwin shook his head, and turned back to his plate, but after a while he stopped chewing and frowned slightly.

Jeanne noticed his altered mood. ‘What is it, my love? Is the food not to your taste?’

‘The food is wonderful,’ he lied smilingly. ‘It is only my appetite. I am replete.’

In truth, Baldwin had recalled the face of Lady Katharine of Throwleigh, and it was the vision of the weeping woman which had destroyed his appetite. And yet, as he reminded himself, there were no suspicious circumstances. The father had died naturally, the son had been run down. And that was that.

Wasn’t it?

The next day dawned clear and sunny, a perfect spring morning.

Simon stared from his window in the guest room. From here he could see over a swathe of southern Devonshire almost to the sea. The sun shone brightly from a cloudless sky, and the scene was perfectly framed by the lines of trees at either side. His wife was still asleep, and the bailiff dressed and walked down to the hall. Here he found the servants at work clearing the mess of the night before, sweeping around the odd recumbent figure slumped on the table or lying amid the soiled rushes.

The bailiff nodded happily to Edgar. It was some surprise, after the amount he had drunk the previous day, but his head and guts felt fine. He had only a minor pain in his head and the feeling that a walk outside would be kinder to those who breathed the same air as him.

He stepped into the buttery and filled a wineskin, rut-tutting as he surveyed the slumped figure of Wat, snoring gently at the side of one of Baldwin’s great barrels of ale, a happy smile on his face. Slipping the thong over his neck, Simon walked out to the southern-facing wall. An old tree-trunk stood there, on which Baldwin’s men split logs, and he sat on it, taking a good swallow of wine, then leaning back and gazing over the view with a contented sigh.

Thus it was that Simon saw the messenger before anyone else.

‘He sent this man to ride through the night?’ Baldwin exclaimed.

Simon nodded. The stableman was the same who had been sent with news of Herbert’s death, a bedraggled, exhausted lad of almost eighteen. ‘Daniel must have thought it was important.’

‘Of course,’ said Baldwin, peering at the messenger once more. His words had been few, the meaning clear. ‘Daniel thinks his master, the boy Herbert, was murdered, and asks that you go to the manor to investigate.’

‘I have to go,’ Simon said heavily. ‘Although I’m not sure what this Daniel thinks I can do…’

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘You’ve just got married. You can’t go to an enquiry on the day after your wedding!’

‘Be damned to that!’ Baldwin declared hotly. The sense of languorous fatigue with which he had awoken, the thrill of seeing his wife’s face at his side, now pricked at his conscience, as if he was himself guilty of complicity in the child’s death. ‘I always had the conviction that the boy had been murdered, but I allowed myself to be gulled by that avaricious bastard Thomas. Well, I’ll not make the same mistake again!’

‘Baldwin, we don’t know that he wasn’t killed by accident.’

The knight carried on as if he had not heard his friend. ‘How could I have been so stupid? I must have been born a cretin! All right, the boy was run down – but how often does that happen?’

‘My friend,’ Simon said calmingly, ‘we don’t know that he was murdered, all we know is that Daniel thinks he might have been. That isn’t reason enough for you to desert your wife. You stay here, and I’ll go and look into it. Boys and men get run down and killed every day of the week.’

‘Rubbish, Simon! Those who get run over are drunk, or fall accidentally. They die outside alehouses, or just outside their own doors. But young Herbert died out on the moors – and he wasn’t drunk. He would have jumped from the path of a wagon.’

‘Pure supposition!’

‘Logic!’

‘Baldwin, you cannot leave your wife the day after your wedding; it’s not right.’

‘Leave me? What makes you think he would be leaving me, Bailiff?’

Simon’s heart sank. He had wanted to keep this from Lady Jeanne, but now there was no way to conceal it. ‘I am truly sorry, Lady, I wouldn’t want to be cause of dispute between you and your husband. I shall leave you so he can explain.’

Jeanne lifted her eyebrow, then gave a low chuckle. ‘Bailiff, if you think that I don’t realise what’s going on here, you have no understanding of the loudness of your voice.’

‘But you asked…’ Simon stammered.

‘Why you thought he would be leaving me here. Of course he won’t. I will be joining you both to see Lady Katharine and help soothe the poor woman.’