A Friar's bloodfeud

Chapter Twenty-One

Robert Crokers felt good that morning. He had slept better, and as his bitch lay patiently waiting he knelt nearby, watching.

‘Poor old girl,’ he whispered.

‘You mooning after your bitch again?’ Walter called.

He was not a sentimental man, this Walter. So far as Robert could make out, he’d been a wandering man-at-arms for some while, and only fairly recently had come into the de Courtenay fold. It was a surprise to Robert, because he knew that Lord de Courtenay and his vassal Sir John Sully were both reluctant to take on mercenary fellows. Far better that they should have men who were long-term servants, those who owed allegiance from their oaths rather than selling it for a few coins. Nobody liked a mercenary.

‘She’s always been a good bitch,’ Robert explained as he left her in her corner and walked over to join Walter.

‘So she should be. If a dog don’t work, it has to be made to. If it can’t, has to be killed. That’s how dogs are,’ Walter said unsympathetically.

‘You don’t like their company?’

Walter pulled a face. ‘I’ve been bitten too often to trust the damned things. No, give me a good rache and I’m happy. An animal that’ll hunt for the pot, that’s a useful thing — but a sheepdog? What good’s that to me? All they ever do is snap at your heels or worse. I had one go for my cods once. Damn near got them, too. Had a great bite out of my tunic, and I had to kick it to get it to let go. Damned thing.’

Robert wondered idly what Walter could have been doing when the dog took such exception, but it wasn’t the sort of question a man could put to a mercenary. It was all too likely that he’d hear something he’d really prefer not to know. ‘How long do you think it’ll be before they come back?’

Walter shrugged and glanced out through the doorway. ‘If they feel sure of their ground, it’ll be a long time. If they’re nervous, they may try to come sooner. Doesn’t matter which. They won’t want to kill us. We’re not important to them, and there’s no point killing those who aren’t a danger.’

‘If we’re unimportant, surely that makes it easier to kill us?’

Walter looked at him pityingly. ‘If we were at war, our lives wouldn’t be worth a penny, but as it is, with us over here and no real threat to anyone, they’ll just chase us off the land, and by the time we’re gone word’ll have reached Sir Odo and twenty or thirty men will be here to take the place back again.’

‘So how will it end?’ Robert asked. ‘From what you say, we’ll be harried away, then come back, time after time. Where can it end?’

‘It’ll end when the Lord Despenser comes and forces his case,’ Walter said with another shrug.

‘But if Lord de Courtenay comes and defends the place …’

This time Walter’s glance held more contempt than pity. ‘You think so? Say de Courtenay comes here — what of it? Oh, he’s been here in Devon for many years, and he owns much land, I’ve no doubt, but he’s never been a close friend of the king’s, has he? He’s no relation either. So if he comes and tells my Lord Despenser to leave the place, who’s going to have to go in the end?’

‘Lord de Courtenay has more men here, though,’ Robert said confidently.

‘And there are many who’d prefer to stay on the side of the king and his personal friend and companion, too. And that means my Lord Despenser. If Despenser decides he wants this land, mark this, friend, there is no one who’ll be able to keep it away from him. And if it comes to that, you and I’ll be irrelevant. We’re only pawns.’

‘Sweet Christ!’

‘So I wouldn’t worry so much about that hound of yours. Rather, I’d be looking to sharpening any knives or swords that I had about the place. And then thinking about getting the dog ready to fight again. She isn’t much use lying on her flank all day, is she?’

Robert looked out through the door at the small trampled area of garden. ‘How long? How long before it’s over and I know whether this is to remain my home or is going to be stolen from me?’

Walter snorted and hawked, spitting into the angle of the wall. ‘I’d reckon we’ll know in about the next month or so. If Despenser decides he wants this, he’ll make it plain.’

‘What would you do then?’

Walter hunched his shoulders as he considered. He’d been here only a year and a half or so, and by Christ it had been good. In the past he’d served in the king’s host, even travelling to the king’s lands in France for a while, but in a life of fighting he’d never found such … such ease of spirit as he’d found here. That was it, yes. Ease of spirit. In other places he’d fought and been scared, and sometimes his companions and he had won and they’d taken much booty; at others they’d been thrashed and they’d lost everything. There was always the chance of being ruined at any time.

Here, though, he’d learned that there could be benefits to peace. He hadn’t had to take up weapons against men who were bigger than him, or fight with a band of fellows who were likely to desert him just when the battle grew harshest. Instead he’d discovered that the lands about here were conducive to relaxation. There was little work that truly had to be done today.

‘I’d stay with Sir Odo for as long as I could, I reckon,’ he said at last. ‘That’s it. He’s been good to me. I–I like him. I can respect him. I think I’d stay with him even if he lost everything.’

‘You’d be that loyal?’

Walter stirred himself, irritated by the questioning. ‘Why? Do you think that I’m just a mediocre felon because I don’t have a master? I am a free man, not tied to some land. I am as loyal as any man deserves. Sir Odo saved me when I needed help. I’ll repay that. What’ll you do? If the Despensers decide to take this manor, they’ll still need a bailiff here, so you may well find yourself wanted anyway.’

‘But I’m Lord de Courtenay’s man.’

‘You can protest all you want, but you’d best think about that if you want a home to live in. If Despenser chooses, Lord de Courtenay won’t have any household to be loyal to. Look at Earl Thomas, the king’s own cousin. He’s been executed like a felon. Then there’s King Edward’s favourite general, Lord Mortimer. He’s under threat of execution if he’s ever found again. Those two were loyal to their king too. How long do you think de Courtenay can survive if Despenser takes against him the way he took against those other two?’

Baldwin eyed this knight with the same cold, dispassionate interest with which he studied any other man he suspected of murder.

Sir Geoffrey was a confident, square-jawed man with the manner of a natural bully. Baldwin had known many like him, although usually there was one clear flaw in their character. A bully would usually give himself away with bluster and arrogance. Not so this knight. He hadn’t threatened or sworn at the sudden interruption of his privacy. Perhaps it was because he was intelligent too, that he offered wine and allowed them to remain in his hall without calling for guards to remove them as he could have. After all, even the Despenser’s men had to be wary of insulting the king’s own officials … in public, at least.

There was more, though, Baldwin reckoned. This man was no fool, and he wanted to know what the Keeper knew. He wanted to trade information, perhaps, or was it only that he wanted to win Baldwin over, if that was at all possible?

‘Come with me,’ Sir Geoffrey said, tilting his head slightly to one side and giving a self-deprecating grin and shrug, like a peasant who’d been caught out in a little ruse.

That manner of his made Baldwin wonder whether the man was actually as intelligent as he had initially suspected. If he had thought to conceal a crime he himself had perpetrated, surely the worst thing he could have done would have been to bring the body here. To attempt to hide her in his own hall would immediately have the effect of adding to any suspicions about him.

But Sir Geoffrey had no foolish delusions that he might be free of suspicion, of course, Baldwin told himself. Sir Geoffrey was an astute man. If he had been involved in this woman’s murder, he would have made sure already that his men were briefed to give him an alibi; if another man had killed her, surely he would want to make sure that the killer was speedily discovered.

She lay on a door on the floor of the solar. Her body had spent some time in the water, Baldwin reckoned: although he was no expert in bodies retrieved from mires, the flesh of her hands appeared almost like gloves, and looked as though it would pull away at a touch. Simon, he realised, had walked straight in and now stared down at her at Baldwin’s side.

Thinking again of how Simon had kept back from the ruins of Hugh’s house, Baldwin was surprised. Simon could usually be relied upon to remain at the rear of any investigation like this, but today he was right beside Baldwin, and Baldwin wondered why, until he saw Simon’s face. The bailiff had wondered whether there could have been any error, and whether this could have been Hugh’s wife. That it was not was not in doubt. This lady was dark-haired, with probably a dark complexion in life; Constance had been very fair of skin and hair. Simon took one look at her and subsided, moving behind Baldwin, his head hanging.

‘Who has identified her?’ Baldwin demanded of the knight.

Sir Geoffrey shrugged. ‘I have men here who know her well enough. I can find others, if you wish. There’s a local priest who knew her. If you don’t trust our word, you will believe a priest, I suppose?’

Baldwin turned and gave him a long stare. The man was insufferably confident now that the men were all in here looking at the body, but whether it was the confidence of the innocent, or the bluster of a guilty man, Baldwin could not tell. ‘Which priest?’

‘Humphrey or Isaac down nearer the river. Anyone will tell you where you can find them.’

‘Why did you remove the body to this room? You know the law. She should have remained where she was found.’

‘How often would a coroner demand that a drowned man be left in the river where he was found? Don’t be ridiculous. She was in a pool of water. It would be stupid to leave her there. And in any case, this poor child was a neighbour almost. I could not let her remain there. I fear that if the law demands that an innocent young woman like this should be left in the wet grave in which she was discovered, the law deserves to be ignored.’

‘You did not intend to see whether you could hide her?’

Sir Geoffrey grinned more widely. ‘Sir, is she hidden? How many men did I tell to keep silent about finding her? None! I merely sought to protect the body of a dead neighbour from being consumed by wild beasts, because no matter how much I tried to have her person guarded, in this weather my peasants would have left her alone while they went to find more adequate clothing, or sticks for a fire, or a hovel in which to shelter from the rain, and in the meantime she would have been eaten.’

‘When was she last seen?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know. You need to ask her household.’

‘I shall. She came from Meeth?’

‘Yes. She was Lady Lucy of Meeth. Husband died in the war against the king, so she had no one to protect her.’

His gaze had gone to her as though regretfully, Baldwin thought, but that should be the natural reaction of any man who learned of a poor widow who was taken and killed.

Baldwin subjected the corpse to a close examination, speaking all the while. ‘Edgar, see this? Her left arm is broken — above and below her elbow. And the right is broken below the elbow. Both legs have been broken too. There is a great wound under her left breast. Someone stabbed her, but not with an ordinary weapon. It is grossly opened … a terrible wound. The poor child. This looks like torture, followed by a stabbing. At least her death was swift enough. Would you have any idea when she could have been put in that mire, Sir Geoffrey?’

The steward shook his head decisively. ‘Of course not. She was probably thrown there by someone passing by. It’s an easy place to reach from the road, as you saw today, I expect. Anyone could have flung her in and ridden on to Monk Oakhampton or Exbourne. There is nothing to make me suppose that she was put there by someone from my household.’

‘Yet she was tortured. Somebody must have had reason to do that to her.’

‘Someone who might, for instance, have desired her?’

Baldwin smiled without humour. ‘You think so? A man who craved her body so much that he was willing to destroy it in order to prevent another having it? Or someone who wanted to make her a compliant bed-mate? How many women have you known who would willingly sleep with a man who had tortured them?’

‘What else could it be?’

‘Oh, I am sure we can come up with some suggestions to cover the facts,’ Baldwin said mildly. ‘But I think that there is little more to be learned from this poor child’s broken body. You have sent for the coroner, you say?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he is a knight who owns his loyalty to Lord Despenser. As you do. That will make matters much more convenient.’

‘That is the second time you have mentioned that we both owe allegiance to the same man,’ Sir Geoffrey commented. His eyes looked lazily at Baldwin, the lids falling until he seemed close to dozing. ‘Does that mean that you have some comments you wish to make about my master?’

‘Not at all. He is not here,’ Baldwin smiled.

‘Then, perhaps, you have something to say about me?’

‘No. I am simply intrigued that so much should be happening here, and by the coroner’s assumption of an accident up at Iddesleigh. That was a very convenient decision, was it not?’

‘Iddesleigh?’

‘The coroner suggested that the house fire was an accident. I think it was a murder. Men went there and murdered a woman and child.’

‘I heard of that. Yes, a man and his wife and child died, so I heard.’

‘Certainly the woman and child are dead.’

Baldwin was aware of Simon throwing him a look, but Baldwin refused to return it. He was watching the knight in front of him very carefully to see whether his words had affected him.

Sir Geoffrey eyed him doubtfully, but Baldwin did not see any guilt, only a little surprise. ‘Well, if you have questions for the coroner, you will be able to ask him before long.’

Baldwin looked back at the body on the rude stretcher. ‘I think I may do that.’

‘Do,’ Sir Geoffrey said.

Glancing up at him, Baldwin thought he had a little of the stillness of a snake preparing to strike. Rather than provoke him further, he would have left the room, but Sir Geoffrey was blocking his path.

‘There is one thing you should consider, Sir Baldwin,’ he said quietly. ‘Bear this in mind. If I was going to murder, I would not be foolish enough to hide the body on my lands just when I was going to expose that very area to the gaze of all my villeins. If I killed, I would leave the woman’s body somewhere else. Perhaps on a neighbour’s lands, if I sought to do him a foul turn.’

‘You have many enemies?’

Sir Geoffrey showed his teeth. It could have been a smile, but it could equally have been a snarl. ‘What do you think?’