No Law in the Land

Chapter Twenty-Two

Nymet Traci

Sir Robert de Traci stalked along his hall and out into the yard, one hand on the pommel of his sword. ‘Osbert? How was it?’

His henchman shook his head. ‘As you’d expect.’

The knight shrugged. ‘Well, no matter. I didn’t expect more. So the abbot-elect didn’t send a note with the messenger?’

‘There was nothing there, no,’ Osbert said.

‘The messenger’s dead? I don’t want any risk that he could get back to the king. Good, good. The main thing is, the message was delivered. Now we’ll have to use a little guile to bring in the big fish. You don’t catch a salmon by beckoning, do you? The idea was all right, but there was never much likelihood that it would work for a man like the aspiring abbot. He’s too wily for that. No, what we need is a more realistic temptation for him to come to us.’

‘What will you do to tempt him, then?’ Osbert said. His good eye was fixed on his master.

‘We’ll have to think of something. After all, there cannot be too much in the life of a man like him. All we need to do is figure out what little latch will open his heart. What key will fit it, and how to turn it. Money failed, which means perhaps avarice is not the way. He’s a man, though, and a monk, so perhaps a suitable woman?’

Osbert shrugged. ‘I never understood the sort of men who would want to hide away in an abbey.’

‘No. You and I are two of a kind, Os. We prefer the reality of this world to dreaming of the next, eh?’

Osbert snorted as he busied himself about his mount. ‘What of the next world? So long as there’s time to say a Pater Noster, we’ll be allowed in anyway. Why live like a monk with no cods, when you can live like a king down here?’

‘Quite right. One thing, Os — the messenger had no other messages in his little pouch?’

‘Nothing I saw. I reckoned he had some verbal messages. Nothing much I could do about them, though. Basil killed him as soon as he could.’

‘Ah yes. My son,’ Sir Robert said. ‘And where is he?’

‘In Bow. There’s a girl there-’

‘I see. Which?’

‘The little black-haired one with the long legs. You know the one? Lives at the farm in the middle of the high street on the north side.’

‘I think I do, yes.’

The knight was plainly worried about his son’s tardiness. Osbert nodded as his master took his leave, and then set about removing saddle and bridle. There were plenty of ostlers and grooms, but this was no simple palfrey he had used; it was his own horse, and one thing he had learned in eighteen months of wandering the roads was that his own horse merited his own efforts. A horse was like any other tool: if a man valued it, he would be rewarded by it.

While he brushed the sweat and dirt from his beast, Osbert was thinking again of the messages in the messenger’s pouch.

It was true that there was nothing directly relevant to him or to Sir Robert, but there had been the one little note in there. The cylinder had opened easily enough, and Osbert had been able to read it with ease, even with the mud all about. The message had said that a shipment of over one hundred pounds had been stolen from the abbey on its way to the king.

Osbert had stared at it expressionlessly while the other men stamped their feet and muttered about the God-damned cold, before he dropped the cylinder back into the leather pouch.

After all, there was no point hiding the robbery. All would know about it soon enough.

He was still there when there was a banging at the door, and some ribald shouts. Looking up, he saw a pair of horses appear in the gateway. One of the riders was a scrawny-looking fellow who might have been a lawyer from his appearance, but the other was very different: a slim, rather beautiful young woman with the haughtiness of a countess, who stuck her chin in the air and ignored the comments that washed about her.

Before long she had been helped from her mount, and willing hands guided her to the hall, where a maidservant came to meet her and took her inside.

It was nothing to Osbert. He continued with the long, regular strokes of his brush that he knew his horse most appreciated, until Sir Robert appeared beside him a while later, laughing and rubbing his hands in glee.

‘You seem happy, Sir Robert,’ Osbert noted.

‘And why not, Osbert? After all, we were discussing how to unlock the abbot’s heart, weren’t we? I would think we have the key now. After all, what could be better to aid us than the daughter of one of his friends?’

Tavistock Abbey

Robert Busse walked the short distance from the choir to the chapter house, and had seated himself at the stone bench that was fitted into the wall when the knock came.

It was an irritation. There was so much for him to consider, especially with the sudden death of the messenger. ‘Yes?’

‘Brother, the men have discovered something.’

Busse sighed. If the whole community was going to behave like this overenthusiastic puppy, he would resign his post and run away to become a hermit somewhere far from here, he told himself. Oh, the boy meant well, but he was so keen to see Robert installed as abbot that he was always about his ankles like a devoted mastiff. Robert found he was forever tripping over the lad. Perhaps it was planned, he wondered. Perhaps in fact the boy was the devoted servant of de Courtenay, and spent his time about Robert so that the abbot-elect would grow completely enraged by his solicitous attention and give up all hope of the position.

The idea was enough to wipe away the final vestige of grumpiness, and in its place he fitted a smile. ‘How may I serve you, Peter?’

‘This!’

The lad dramatically opened his hand. In it was a pair of small cylinders. Robert recognised them instantly. ‘Where did you find them?’ he asked.

‘They were in the messenger’s shirt, Abbot.’

‘Nay, I am not abbot,’ Robert chided him gently.

‘But you will be, Abbot!’

Robert shook his head. ‘What are they?’

‘You must see them. The others, they were in his pouch or scattered about, but these two were inside his shirt and hidden. I suppose he thought that they were too important to be left behind!’

Taking them, the abbot-elect felt a tingle in his fingers, as though the small scrolls were themselves trying to tell him that they were to be most significant for him.

‘The seals are broken on them?’

‘I fear, Abbot, that the men who found the body didn’t think.’

He nodded, not believing a word of it. The men who would have found the body and brought it to the road would have been unlettered. These had been opened by Peter or another monk. Still, they had been already read, so he might as well do so as well.

The writing was tiny, to be able to fit in such a small scroll, but perfectly legible, and as soon as he took in the words, Robert Busse felt his mouth open in disbelief.

‘You see?’ Peter said, his voice hushed.

‘I will take these,’ Robert said. ‘You did right to bring them to me, Peter. And now, please leave me.’

He had never before held anything quite so shocking in his hands. For this was written proof that a companion of his in the abbey sought his murder.

Bow

The light was almost gone now and Edith realised that they were close to the end of their journey. As they clattered down the stony path towards the stone house she remembered as Sir Harold’s, she could see that it was a strong fortress. Where Sir Harold had lived in modest comfort and without exacting too much in the way of taxes from his serfs, the new owner of the house was more determined to impose his rule on the landscape.

It was clear enough in so many little ways. When she had last been past here, she had seen a pleasant home. It was a good-sized hall for a small household, set inside a circling wall of grey stone, but the wall was only some five to six feet high, so not a deliberately defensive enclosure. Rather, it was enough to keep the sheep and cattle from wandering, and to prevent foxes or wild dogs from attacking the chickens. Trees had grown up close to the walls to the north-east, making an attractive area for sitting on hot summer days. To Edith’s eye it had looked like a pleasant little homestead.

Not now. The wall had been expanded to encompass a broader area. The little barns and stables had grown, and there was a cleared swathe of land for a good bowshot in all directions. Where the original wall had been more use as a stockade, now it was a distinct fortress. There was more height to it, and added thickness, as well as battlements. It was made to withstand attack, and money had been spent to ensure that it would serve its purpose.

‘What has happened to Sir Harold?’ she asked nervously as they rode towards the little gatehouse.

‘He’s dead. This is the property of my lord Sir Hugh le Despenser now,’ William replied with a quick look at her. ‘He took it when Sir Harold died and his son, Sir Robert, was found to have committed treason. The de Traci family was disinherited immediately. It’s only by my master’s good favour that Sir Robert has been reinstated and pardoned. But my lord Despenser keeps ownership.’

Everyone in the kingdom knew Sir Hugh would take what he wanted and to hell with the owners. He had a reputation for cruelty that was unequalled.

‘Master, what do you want with me?’

‘I want nothing, mistress. It’s not me, it’s what Sir Robert and my lord Despenser want that should trouble you.’

He said no more, but led her to the gates, her mare’s reins in his hands. She had no means of escape — even sliding from the mare and running was no option. There was nowhere to run to from here. All the land about this northern wall of the house was clear of bushes. She would not make even a hundred yards before recapture. A man on horseback, even a knackered hobby like his, would surely run her down in moments.

The gates loomed up, grim grey moorstone with solid oaken doors that looked as though they could withstand the massed artillery of the king’s forces. Edith felt like a mouse in the claws of an owl. Utterly helpless. There was no escape from here. In her mind, she saw herself making off in a dozen ingenious ways: turning her mare at Wattere, spurring her so that she ran into him and knocked him from his beast, snatching her reins and riding like the wind until she was safe; getting close to him, close enough to pull his sword and strike, and then riding off; talking to him, persuading him that she was worth saving from whatever might happen in there, thankfully taking his protection as he fought off the whole of the guard … And then they were under the gates and inside the castle.

Behind her, she heard the slow grinding and graunching of the gates as they were pushed shut. And then there was a rumble as the massive baulks of timber were dropped into their slots to keep the gates closed.

It sounded like the gates of hell being closed behind her.

Jacobstowe

Sir Richard paused dramatically, and then gave a flourish with his hand. ‘This maid, then, was captured and bound by her captor, and was rescued by a saviour who wanted to assure himself of her condition, to make sure that she was unharmed, if you know what I mean, eh, fellows? He needed to know no one had been sheathing his pork sword where it shouldn’t have been sheathed, eh?’

His crudeness won a round of happy chuckles from his audience, and he was content as he refilled his quart pot. ‘So, she was happy to answer his questions. “Did he bind you?” She replied with a shake of her head and much discontent. “I am afraid he did, my lord.” Her saviour continued, “Did he bind your mouth to stay your protestations, child?” And she was able to reply with a sob, “Why yes, my lord. He did.” Her saviour was grim faced by now. “Did he tie you up so you couldn’t escape?” “Yes, yes, he did, my lord. To my disgrace, I could not save myself.” “Did he bind your legs?” But here she could smile. Eh? “Nay, my lord, for by God’s good grace, I made sure I kept my legs so wide apart he couldn’t bind them together!” Eh? Eh? Good joke, eh?’

Simon couldn’t help laughing. It was an old joke, but the coroner had a childlike delight in retelling it, and a number of other ones equally as bad. Often he was so incoherent by the time he reached the end of the joke, laughing so much at the approaching coup de grâce, that the enthusiastic audience could make out nothing of his words, but they would all laugh in any case. It was easy to see that the coroner, while in his cups and not working in his usual position of authority, was a good-humoured soul who enjoyed amusing people.

‘There is another one, too,’ he said, before launching into the next little tale.

Simon watched him with a faint grin. It was very hard not to like the man, even though he generally caused Simon to panic whenever they were near to a tavern. It wasn’t his jokes; it was his ability to drink everyone else into a stupor that really concerned Simon. It tended to leave him feeling as lousy as a youth after his first serious bout of drinking. That sense of the room swimming about his head as soon as he lay down, the repellent bubbling in his gut, the morning-after feeling of acid in the throat and the knowledge that his head had swollen to many times its usual size, with the concomitant fluffiness in his brain that was only ever relieved by the pain — as of four daggers being thrust in slowly from the temples and his eye sockets. No, he did not like drinking with Sir Richard. The resultant anguish was too horrible.

As the coroner continued, Simon fell to thinking about the dead bodies. It was curious that there had been no reports of the money being stolen until he had spoken to Cardinal de Fargis. He would have thought that others should have heard of such a large theft. But the trouble was, it was the very knowledge of such transfers of cash that led to the ease of their robbery. It was normal for even huge sums of money to be transported about the country with only four or five archers involved as guards. In this case, it would seem that eight archers and a couple of men-at-arms should have been perfectly adequate, and yet the size of the force that attacked them must have been greatly superior.

His eyes narrowed as he considered some aspects that had not occurred to him before. First, the men had not travelled very far. It was a distance that Simon and Sir Richard had covered in a half-day. That was odd, although it could have been explained by the weight of the money they were carrying. A hundred pounds of money in coin was a heavy cargo. And then there was the fact of the location. The men should not have been north of Oakhampton.

There was another detail: most commonly, when a robbery of this kind was perpetrated, Simon was sure that it was no accident. Men did not happen to fall over a bullion transfer. No, the attacks were made by those who had heard of the money being transported and wanted to grab it for themselves. It was not a matter of luck; it was a military ambush based on good intelligence. Someone who was close to people who knew about the money must have managed to release news of its movement to colleagues, who then took it.

So someone within the abbey, possibly, had told the attackers of the presence of the money.

Simon considered this with a frown as the noise about him rose, Sir Richard laughing aloud, the men all around roaring too, as he hit another punchline with the precision of a master story-teller.

The idea that someone in the cardinal’s household could have betrayed him was not entirely surprising. Men would always think with their two brains: one for skirts, one for purses. It was scarcely a shock to learn that a man had heard of money being moved and bethought himself of the profit he could make. However, the result of his actions must have come as a shock. To learn that nineteen had died would surely make even the most avaricious thief pause for thought.

Then again, perhaps not. Simon knew that Sir Hugh le Despenser had happily caused the torture and ruin of many men and women, and none ever appeared to give him a moment’s trouble. He was happy only so long as he was increasing his wealth and power. It was hard to imagine him being plagued by concerns for his victims. He would happily sell his wife into bondage, Simon reckoned, if it meant he would win a good property or profit by the arrangement.

And then he had another thought. If a man in the abbey or the cardinal’s household had seen fit to tell thieves about the money, they might also think it sensible to warn of the king’s officers being sent to hunt down the outlaws involved and find the money again. And they might think it expedient to locate any such officers and kill them.

Simon took a long pull at his ale. Even without a hangover, he was starting to feel deeply uncomfortable.