A Friar's bloodfeud

Chapter Twenty-Five

Sir Edward de Launcelles was still at the inn at Roborough when the flustered cattleman’s boy arrived late in the afternoon. He remained seated near the fire, his great fur-lined cloak pulled about him as he watched the lad rush into the warm room, and felt only a comforting certainty that at last his miserable exile here was soon to be ended.

The trouble that he was being put to! Christ’s teeth, if he’d realised how much time and energy would be taken up by the job, he’d never have agreed to being installed as coroner. There were any number of other jobs, in God’s name, and most of them didn’t require a gentleman to survey the noisome remains of long-dead peasants, who’d have smelled rank enough in life, without the added stink of three or four weeks of lying in the open. It was worst, of course, in the summer months, when bodies would become flyblown in no time. There had been one last year which had been reasonably well protected against the depredations of wild animals, but was in an even worse state as a consequence, perhaps. When they tried to pull the body over to view any injuries, the rotten carcass had fallen apart and a swarm of insects of all kinds had risen from it. It had been like watching demons leaving a possessed soul, his clerk had said at the time, recoiling in horror, crossing and recrossing himself against the sight.

That clerk had soon left his service.

This was no job for a man like Sir Edward either, though. Better by far that he should have waited until something else came up. There were so many gifts in the grant of his lord, now that Hugh Despenser was the king’s first adviser. So many manors were being appropriated by the Despensers that Earl Hugh was always looking for loyal and reliable men to run them for him. Perhaps Sir Edward could get one now?

‘Over here, boy!’ he called.

The post had seemed attractive at first, because an assiduous coroner could always find some infraction of the law and thereby impose a few additional fines, some of which could be pocketed. But when the communities were as poor as these Devon vills, it made all the effort of riding out, viewing repellent corpses, and questioning the jury, seem wasteful of his time. Better by far to have a quiet, pleasant manor — one like Sir Geoffrey’s.

The old devil was comfortable there. A goodly force of men-at-arms with him, pleasant estates to manage, and the occasional bit of banditry when life grew dull … it couldn’t be much better. If Sir Geoffrey was ever to leave, Sir Edward would be pleased to take over Monkleigh.

‘Sir? Are you the coroner?’

Sir Edward hitched his cloak up over his shoulder, where it had fallen away. ‘What do you want, boy?’ As if he didn’t know.

‘Sir, there’s been a body found. A lady, sir, murdered.’

‘A lady?’ Sir Edward shot out, and sat up in his seat.

That wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting.

Humphrey hurried along the track, his pack heavy over his shoulder. There was every hope that he might escape without being seen, and the idea of getting away from these cursed vills was entirely appealing. Without thinking, he had taken the obvious route from the chapel, sticking to the main roadway which was so much easier to pass along than the others — but it did mean he was more likely to be discovered by chance as he hurried up towards Iddesleigh.

He stopped and stared about him. He was on the long, flat plain that led up to Iddesleigh itself, and he could see the vill up ahead nestling on the side of the hill, the great white bulk of the inn, the grey moorstone church over to the left. They sat on the side of the little mound, and the road went down into a valley after curling round them both.

But almost in front of the church there was a second road that dropped down to the river, he recalled. He could see it now. If he could just reach that and take the way to the ford, cross the river and head towards Meeth — but there was no safety there either. Men all about the place would be seeking the murderer of Lady Lucy. He knew that well enough.

He could weep. This whole matter was so unfair. All through his life he’d tried to be good and decent, to live by God’s laws, and to serve his people in the way that God would have liked, and now here he was, a renegade, no home to go to, his only refuge gone, and his living with it. All because a man had once bullied him, and now someone else had died.

At least he knew of a small place where he might be able to hide for a little while, he told himself, and he took a good long look about him again. From behind him he could hear the noise of many horses, the baying of hounds and shouting men.

It was enough to decide him. Throwing his pack over the low hedge on his left, he scrambled after it, ignoring the cuts and scratches from blackthorn, rose and bramble. In the pasture he gripped his pack again, then ran quickly over the grass to the far side of the meadow where the lane led down towards the river.

It had been a long day, and Simon was growing more and more fretful as he jogged along on his horse between the houses of the little estate.

Everything seemed to be passing by him in a whirl. The news that Hugh, Constance and little Hugh were dead had come like an unexpected lance-thrust in his breast. It had unseated his reason, disabled his power of thought, addled his mind … all he could do was visualise his old companion glowering ferociously in an argument, or recall the man on all fours pretending to be a horse for Edith. Hugh had been such a miserable sodomite in so many ways — and yet he was still a loyal companion. Simon had missed him when they had separated, Hugh to come up here, Simon to take up his new post in Dartmouth, but he’d never imagined …

Since reaching this vill matters had not improved. There were too many men who could have had a hand in his death, and there appeared to be no motive unless it was the simple one of land theft, intimidating Hugh’s neighbours into the bargain. It was the way Lord Despenser worked; in all likelihood it was the way his vassal Sir Geoffrey worked as well.

He set his teeth at that thought: he could not attack a man like Sir Geoffrey. It would take a much more powerful, wealthier individual to do that. Even if he found the money, attacking the knight might make him an enemy he couldn’t afford. Simon didn’t want to leave his wife a widow. Meg deserved better than that. So did his daughter.

But Hugh deserved better than to be forgotten and left unavenged.

And now there was this new thunderbolt: Baldwin and Edgar were both convinced that Hugh was still alive. Simon didn’t know how he should feel about that. Clearly he would be delighted if his man wasn’t dead — but that was not assured. Hugh could have been grievously wounded and perhaps even now lay at death’s door, or had passed through it. It only required a small wound to kill a man. And if he was alive, what then? Should Simon help him to prosecute his wife’s killer, again at risk to his own family? Or should he try to prevent Hugh’s attempt at revenge in order to protect Hugh himself? Simon was also aware of a nagging jealousy that his man had sought to get a message to Baldwin rather than Simon himself, but he knew that Hugh couldn’t have known he was going to be at his home just then. Hugh would have sought the aid of Edgar first because he was nearest, and would pass the word to Baldwin with all possible speed. With a Keeper of the King’s Peace on his way, Hugh could rest more comfortably, and he would have known that Baldwin would before anything else have sent a messenger to fetch Simon himself.

Yet he still felt that small prick of jealousy as they rode into the little farmstead.

Edgar had stopped to confirm which house was Ailward’s widow’s, and they had been directed towards a long, low house that stood above most of the others, with a good-sized yard before it. There were chickens and a pig rootling about, but they scattered before the hooves of the horses. Beyond a low rickety fence lay a garden area, with plenty of winter greens, and then the house.

Smoke issued from a little vent in the thatch, but it could have emanated from any number of gaps. The thatch was ancient, from the look of it, dark and rotten, and to Simon’s dull eye it looked close to collapse. They’d have to put up new thatch this year.

It was the sort of job that Hugh would have relished. He’d have complained, of course — he always did. It was his birthright to moan and whinge about every task he was asked to do. There was no job so quick and easy that his truculent nature wouldn’t demand that he should grumble until Simon had grown bored with his voice. Usually the whining tones would continue until long after the task had been completed.

A smile came to his face. Simon remembered one day back at Sandford when Hugh had helped to build a new door. He had still been bitterly bemoaning the way that Simon took his skills for granted when night had fallen, and Simon could hear him at his bench, sleepily declaring that he wouldn’t do such menial work for no appreciation ever again.

There were so many memories of his man. All the times when they had been scared or anxious, like the occasion when there had been a gang of desperate men armed with knives and sticks during the famine, or later, when there had been the felons on the moors. Simon could remember so clearly how Hugh had scowled at the ground when Meg had told him how he had protected Jeanne and her during the fair at Tavistock. Then he had protected Simon’s daughter Edith, too, when she had been at the tournament at Okehampton. Simon had never quite got to the bottom of that, but he knew that Hugh had done something from something Baldwin had said, and from the absolute refusal to discuss the matter on Hugh’s part. And Hugh had been a good, strong companion when Simon had lost his first son, and had helped Simon wrap the little body ready for burial.

Oddly enough it was rather like losing his son, this feeling of grim, grasping sadness that tore at his throat whenever he thought of his old friend. There was the same incapacity to think clearly about anything, the same urge to rage at the unfairness of it.

A young woman with her black hair loose in the cool air, clad in a long blue dress and a heavy fur-trimmed cloak of crimson, and carrying a small basket, appeared from behind the house. She appeared almost unaware of the men on their horses, and walked with firm footsteps from one point to another, peering under boards, at the vegetables in the middle of the garden, along the bottom of hedges, and inside the flat bed of an old two-wheel cart. On her face was a fixed frown of concentration, but Simon was certain that in her green eyes there was enough grief to swamp even his own.

Baldwin glanced at the others, then spurred his mount onwards. ‘Madam, I seek the widow of Ailward.’

She gave a sharp intake of breath, almost dropping her basket. ‘Lordings! I … who are you?’

‘I am Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, Keeper of the King’s Peace; this is my friend, Bailiff Simon Puttock, and my servant Edgar. We are …’

‘My Lord Despenser has heard of Ailward’s death?’ she gasped hopefully. ‘He seeks to avenge my husband’s murder?’

‘Malkin, sweet, be still!’

Baldwin looked over to the door and saw an elderly woman standing there listening. ‘Lady? You are this woman’s mother?’

‘In the law, yes. She married my son,’ Isabel said. She stepped forward. ‘I am Madam Isabel of Monkleigh.’

The ride to Iddesleigh was usually pleasant. Sir Edward had come this way several times, for when he had to view a body it was always best to visit another Despenser manor where he could count on good victuals and a decent bed for the night. In any manor where the Despenser’s writ held sway Sir Edward was assured of a good welcome and the best of everything the manor had to offer. Such was the case at Monkleigh, he had recently learned.

Up here, heading towards Sir Geoffrey’s hall from the north, he would pass for a short while along a broad expanse of heathland, a plateau from where he could see for some miles. Then, sinking down among some trees, he began to descend to the river, clattering through the ford, then climbing and passing round the higher part of the hill on which Iddesleigh was perched.

A good vill, this. He liked the stolid, well-maintained properties, the neat and trim little yards and gardens, the good fields and pastures which lay in front. All was ordered and gratifying to a methodical eye like his, but today he was seething, and he scarcely glanced about him as he followed the old track past the inn, taking the right hand turn to Monkleigh.

‘When was this woman found?’ he asked again.

The messenger spat and repeated the story of the draining, the gradual appearance of the hand, then the rest of her body.

‘It is fortunate that I was still there for you to find me,’ Sir Edward said. ‘I can view her and hold my inquest without delay.’

‘Very lucky.’

‘There had been a death. A carter’s boy fell from his horse and was trampled,’ Sir Edward said, a faint hint of defensiveness creeping into his voice.

‘Yes. Is he buried?’

‘Yes.’

This was ridiculous! It was one thing to pressurise a man like Odo from the lands he was supposed to maintain in order to provide Lord Despenser with an additional parcel he had not expected, but Sir Edward had not offered to be associated with the unchivalrous murder of a woman. ‘Did you mention that she was a widow?’

‘Lady Lucy of Meeth. Her husband was killed in the battles two years ago.’

That was all the confirmation Sir Edward needed. So the cunning devil had sought another means of enriching himself, copying his own lord by capturing a woman and trying to force her to hand over the key to her lands and properties. That was not part of the plan when Sir Geoffrey had invited Sir Edward to participate in his little deception. Then the idea had been only to take over some of the de Courtenay lands. His men would fight, probably, but not too fiercely because the gibbets still held the grisly remains of some of the knights and barons who’d been declared traitors after taking part in the rebellion two years ago. With those eloquent reminders of what could happen to a man who stood against Despenser, there were all too few who would take the risk of incurring his enmity. Even a lord like de Courtenay would hesitate before throwing himself into an attack on Despenser lands. Even if provoked.

But this was potentially stupid. If this woman had a brother, a cousin, an uncle, who would be prepared to defend her memory and take back the lands which would now pass to him, Sir Geoffrey could soon find himself challenged personally. A man so appallingly wronged would have few scruples about making the torture and murder of his relative a cause for feud.

Unless, of course, Sir Geoffrey had already assessed the risks and learned that there was no other man involved. That this woman’s lands would be unclaimed once she was removed. Then it would be easy to see why Sir Geoffrey might throw caution to the winds and attempt the theft.

Sir Edward’s respect for Sir Geoffrey’s daring and craftiness grew with every step on the way to the manor.