No Law in the Land

Chapter Six

Barnstaple, north coast of Devon

Roger had made good time in his march northwards.

In part he reckoned it was due to the grim realities of life on the road. The sight of the dead travellers had been a great shock to him, and urged him on to greater efforts in order to reach his destination. The idea of being caught himself out in the open was enough to lend greater urgency to his pace. There were too many who were willing to prey on men who passed by, and Roger had no wish to be another victim.

The sights and sounds of the sea were like a triacleur’s potion to him. They invigorated him. The cries of the gulls, the steady slap and wash of the waves, the odour of fish and seaweed, all hit him like a woman’s touch. They soothed and eased, they caressed his very soul. Here, he thought, he could gain some sort of work to keep his body and spirit healthful.

But when he reached the town, it was soon clear that all his efforts were in vain. He had gone to the docks as soon as he arrived, keeping hold of his meagre reserves with great care; if he could find a berth on a ship, he could save the money. Any ship’s master would feed his sailors, and Roger would be able to hoard his cash.

It was not going to happen, though. He could understand that now, as he walked along the narrow streets of the port, jealously eyeing the shop-boards. They all had an enticing array of goods for sale, and in the end he was forced to succumb to the urgent demands of his belly. He bought an egg, and pierced both ends before sucking it dry. After that he felt an increased hunger, though, rather than a diminution. He had to buy a small loaf of bread and a little cheese, which he ate sitting on the harbour wall, staring out to sea. All the ships that arrived he watched avidly, and as soon as a ship was docked, he wandered over to speak with the master. But each time he was eyed with suspicion, and there would be a shaking of the head and sidelong glances until he left.

He knew what it was, of course. The sailors up here might well go as far as Chatham or London, by sailing about the bottom of the land and up the Thames, but although they would travel far and wide, they were all wary of a man whose accent they couldn’t recognise. Oh, a man from Ilfracombe, or one who’d been brought up by the sea at Bude, even, would be all right, but Roger’s accent was from the south of the shire, and there was no one up here who would trust him. He was foreign, and no shipmaster liked a foreigner on his ship. Foreigners were alien, and might bring bad luck to a voyage.

It was possible, he considered, that he might be able to get a post on another ship — perhaps a little fishing boat, or one of the small ferries that plied their trade across the mouth of the river — but that was not what he wanted. He wished for the escape that the broad, wide seas offered a man. Escape from the memories of war and disaster.

By the end of the second day, he was half ready to give up. His resources were reducing too quickly in this expensive town, and if he kept on spending at this rate, he would soon have nothing. And then he’d have to resort to some other means of finding money. Although how was a different matter. If he wanted to sail, he wondered whether he should find a larger port, a place like Bristol, perhaps, where there was a real city and sailors travelling all around the country. Except there was no telling whether he would be any more popular there than he had been here. He could go to London. There, so he had heard, the people were used to men from all over. They had Dutchmen, Germans, French, even some Galicians and Savoyards. So long as he didn’t end up on a Genoese slave galley, he should be able to find a position there. But London was hundreds of miles away.

He began to wonder whether he would be best off returning to Plymouth. Or maybe Dartmouth?

Third Sunday following the Feast of the Archangel Michael^*

Sampford Chapple

It had taken him more than a little while to find the tracks.

The idea that the men would have ridden past Hoppon’s house so close showed that either they were foolish, or they were supremely confident in their power and safety. They had passed within a matter of yards of the house. It would have been a miracle if Hoppon’s dog hadn’t started barking in defence.

Bill Lark bent as he followed the trail. It was his own fault, and he blamed himself entirely. The trail must have been fine on the first days after the murders, and if he had been a little more diligent, he would have found it. There were plenty of men, after all, and a few carts, and their tracks were clear enough now he was here. What had happened seemed to be that they had ridden over a large swathe of brambles, and even where the carts had rolled, the brambles had sprung back up again by the time he had gone to seek the trail. He’d simply ridden past without seeing the signs. Many would. Many had. But he was angry with himself. He shouldn’t have done so. He prided himself on his abilities as a tracker and hunter, and now he had failed so utterly on the first occasion when it mattered. And to lose the trail of so many men …

It was as he was remonstrating with himself that he saw another group of tracks. Here there were only one or two pairs of boot prints and a solitary little cart, he reckoned. He could not be certain after so long. Yet although the marks joined up with the main mess, coming straight from the travellers’ camp, they crossed over the main group of prints and continued up towards the ancient track in the middle of the woods. That was interesting. That old path was known only by the most local fellows. Rough now, overgrown, it was used as a private route by those who had a desire for stealth or secrecy.

No matter to him, though. The people who had gone up there were nothing to do with the raiders. Otherwise their paths would converge rather than merely cross. Whoever they were, their route took them along the lane past Shilstone, then over to Swanstone, and past it towards Sampford Courtenay.

He set off again. The trail here was easy to follow. There was more mud, and even where the grass had sprung up again, he could see the imprints of hoofs and wheels. The way took him down into the valley, and then up the other side, heading almost towards North Tawton, but then south-east to skirt around the town, and instead he found himself continuing eastwards on the old lane towards Bow.

Here the way was more difficult. The lane was much more busy than the little byways he had followed up until now, and if it weren’t for a chance meeting with an old peasant who lived right beside the road, he would have found the trail dead.

‘Master, God speed,’ he said when he saw the peasant at his garden.

‘God give you a good day,’ the old man said affably, his grizzled beard covering his face so effectively that Bill wasn’t sure whether he smiled or not. He said his name was John Pasmere.

‘What is this place called, friend?’

‘Well, this is Itton Moor. Where do you want to go? No one comes here by choice!’

‘Maybe you can aid me. I am not lost, but I’m trying to follow the marks of some men who passed by here some nights ago,’ Bill said, and introduced himself.

‘Aye? You want the men who rode past a week ago, eh?’ Any apparent affability had fled. ‘Why so, master?’

‘I have good reasons, friend. Why?’

‘They came from near Bow. They often do.’

‘Who are they?’

The old man took his time to peer up the way Bill had come, then studied the landscape all about them before spitting into the roadway. ‘Sir Robert of Traci, that’s who it is. Him and his men. Friend, you be warned. There’s no good will come of seeking them. No good to you, leastways.’

Jacobstowe

Agnes set the baby down again and sighed as she put her hands on her hips and rubbed. This year was proving to be more challenging than any other, and all because her husband had been made bailiff. It was infuriating.

She had always wanted him to get on, of course, and when he had won the post she’d been delighted — for him and for the family. It meant recognition, and with that there might be some potential for advancement in the future. He deserved it. They all did.

Agnes Lark was not the same as other peasants in the area. She had been born out of wedlock, and her mother flatly refused to say who her father was, even when questioned in court. That must have been a daunting experience, with the lord and his steward asking questions, and a clerk making sarcastic comments in the background all the while as he noted down the details of her incontinence, but her mother would not divulge her secret, no matter what was said or threatened. So in the end her father was fined the leyrwite for the birth of Agnes outside of marriage.

It was a shameful affair, of course. But the intransigence of her mother had given Agnes the greatest gift: freedom. Whereas her mother and all the rest of her family were villeins, no one could prove that Agnes was the daughter of a serf, and so the law had to assume that she was the daughter of a free man. The law was clear that if there was any doubt, a child must be assumed to be free, for there could be no greater injustice than to force a child born to a free man to a life of servility. And Agnes was thus freed.

Bill Lark had been a man she saw occasionally. When he asked her to marry him the first time, it had shocked her, and she had refused him curtly, but then he had renewed his suit, and as he asked her so often, it became easier for her to start to think of him as a potential partner. And gradually her feelings for him began to slide into affection.

They had been married now for almost three years. The Ant was the first proof of their love, and she was sure that there would be more before long. Hopefully they would be able to increase their lands and start to buy in more livestock. That was her hope, because there was money to be made from the rich pastures about here. Bill wasn’t convinced yet, but Agnes was sure that she’d be able to persuade him, given time.

Where was he, though? He had left early in the morning, saying he was going to try to follow the trail of the killers, and she had no idea whether he would be home again today, or whether he was going to be missing for a day or more. It was maddening, especially since there was all the clearing to do in the little vegetable plot and the preparation of the soil for the next sowing, as well as looking after their baby.

Anthony hiccuped and she quickly picked him up, wiping his mouth and setting him over her shoulder while patting his back. He was still after a few moments, and she could set him down again in the little crib Bill had made. She pulled the scraps of material up over him, cooing softly at him and gentling him until he was asleep again.

Outside, the light was fading already. It was obvious enough that her husband was not going to return for some little while. He would avoid travelling at night, same as any would. She would have to close everything up and just hope and pray that all was well with him. She sighed, rubbed at her flanks one last time, and went outside to begin her nightly chores, putting the door against the chicken’s box, seeing to the pigs in the pen, and making sure all was locked up before returning to her own door, where she stood a moment staring out at the sun as it finally sank down behind the trees on the hills north and west.

She prayed that her man would be safe.

Barnstaple

It was no good. He had done his best. Now Roger couldn’t even remember the faces of all the men whom he had stopped and asked for work. One, he recalled, had had an empty eye socket and a beard that was entirely white, apart from a darker stain at the edges of his mouth. The sight was odd enough to make Roger stare at first, until he saw the old sailor pick up a rope and begin to work on it, pausing only to thrust it into his mouth. The tar was the cause of the staining, he realised.

That was the only face he remembered now, as he stood on the harbour wall staring longingly out to sea. There was a slight inshore breeze, which was throwing some spray into his face, and when he closed his eyes, he could sense it like icy darts flung at his cheeks. The way the fresh wind tore at his clothing and tugged his hair made him feel alive again, as though his feet were about to shift with the roll of the decking that should have been there.

But there was no decking. There was no ship. All the mariners he had spoken with had refused him with as much alacrity as a master rejecting the pleas of an abjurer. He was foreign, unwanted, distrusted. There was nothing else for him to do.

He threw one last glance out to sea, to the grey roiling waters with the white tops, and shivered as though someone had walked over his grave. There was an odd sensation in his belly and bowels; it felt as though God had sent him a warning that he would find no peace if he turned away and sought his fortune elsewhere.

‘What else would you have me do?’ he muttered. ‘Starve to death up here?’

With a firm rejection of the northern seas, he set his shoulders and began the long march southwards. Plymouth had been no good to him, but perhaps he would be luckier in Dartmouth. He would try it.

Fourth Thursday after the Feast of the Archangel Michael^*

Exeter, Devon

They arrived at the gate in a flurry of noise and excitement as night was falling.

At first Simon and Sir Richard had been happy enough to keep at the gentle trot that had been enough to bring them over the broad plains east of the city. Wolf, too, looked as though he would appreciate a more sedate promenade, ideally with opportunities to investigate the various holes that dotted the hedges and walls about here, but Baldwin would have none of it.

‘We’ve made excellent time to get here so quickly,’ he declared, and lashed the flanks of his mount, making the beast rear. ‘Come, fellows! Let us hasten to my home and rest there!’

‘Baldwin!’ Simon protested. ‘It’ll be dark before we get even remotely close to your home. It is now nearly sunset. We shall have to stay in Exeter the night.’

Baldwin looked ahead at the sun starting to sink down below the hills westwards, then up at the clouds looming overhead, before reluctantly nodding. ‘I suppose we’d be unlikely to make it home tonight.’

‘Not even a remote chance,’ Simon said. He shifted in his saddle. ‘We’ve made excellent time in the last four days. I don’t intend to break my neck for the sake of saving a few hours tomorrow morning. Much though I’d like to see Jeanne and Richalda and little Baldwin, not to mention my own family, there’s no point flogging our way over the country in the dark.’

‘True enough,’ Baldwin agreed. The potholes could be lethal in dim light. There was a man last year who had seen a hat floating in a puddle in a roadway, and when he lifted it, discovered the owner was still wearing it. The poor fellow had already drowned. There were so many little holes in the road, and occasionally they would grow more vast as a result of sudden rainfall, and the unwary would die. Even much shallower holes held their own risks, for they could break a horse’s leg, throw a rider, and result in the deaths of both.

Sir Richard sucked at his teeth. ‘There’s usually a room at a little tavern I know,’ he said hopefully. ‘Excellent ale, better wine, and the food’s acceptable too. I’d-’

Simon hastily interrupted. ‘I am sure that my daughter would be happy to give us some space in her home.’

‘Your daughter?’ Sir Richard asked.

‘Yes. Edith married on the morrow of the Feast of Gordianus and Epimachus,^* and lives now with her man in Exeter,’ Simon said. ‘Peter is a keen merchant. Was apprenticed, but now he’s working with his father, who’s a merchant too. With any luck he’ll be allowed to enter the Freedom of the City, and then who knows? My grandchildren may be born into the city themselves, and have all the advantages.’

Baldwin smiled at his expression. ‘You would like that, wouldn’t you, Simon?’

‘Like it? The idea is wonderful,’ Simon said, a little more sharply than he intended. He tried to cover his tone with a chuckle and an apologetic grin. ‘You come from a knightly family, Baldwin. You can’t quite appreciate the difference between being born a free man and being born a serf. The idea that my grandchildren will have the benefit of being born in the city is marvellous. I’d never have expected that.’

‘Then let’s go and see her house,’ Sir Richard said. ‘Any daughter of yours must be a sight to behold — especially if she has access to her own wine cellar,’ he added hopefully.

St Pancras Lane, Exeter

‘Are you sure you know where you’re going?’ Baldwin asked for the third time.

‘I have only heard where the house is, I haven’t been here before,’ Simon said.

He was rapidly growing alarmed. Edith had told him that her house was down this lane, he was sure. The place, she had said, had a limewashed front, with two large windows and a second storey that hung over the street. It had been the home to her husband Peter when he was younger, but Peter’s parents had built a new house further east, nearer the Guild Hall, and had given their older house to Peter and his wife. He was their only son, after all.

‘Well if you can’t find it,’ the coroner said happily, ‘there’s a very excellent-looking tavern over there. Perhaps they have a room that we could share, eh? God’s blood, but a haunch of meat and a jug of good strong Guyennois wine would go down very well. There’s a gap there where my belly used to be. My brain’s telling me all’s well, but my heart reckons some evil bastard’s cut my throat.’

‘It must be here,’ Simon said.

The three were standing near the line of houses on the eastern side of the road, and now he looked up and down again. ‘If we don’t get there soon, we’ll be breaking the curfew.’

‘Talk of the devil,’ Sir Richard said, jerking his head.

Approaching them with a scowl that would have graced a mastiff was a tall, gangly fellow. He wore a leather jerkin, his hood was over his ears, and his waxed cloak rustled noisily. Yet although he was not the most prepossessing figure, the staff in his hands was a tool to be reckoned with. ‘You are out late, masters.’

‘Aye,’ Sir Richard said. ‘We are a little confused in our ways, I think.’

‘Confused, eh? Perhaps you’d like me to help unconfuse you?’

Baldwin glanced at the others. They were all cloaked against the chill, and he wondered whether the lad had realised that two of them were knights. Certainly his tone was not respectful. If anything, he sounded peevishly suspicious. Even as Baldwin turned to glance back, he saw the lad was gripping his staff more truculently. It was pointing at Sir Richard — which did, at least, demonstrate to Baldwin that the fellow knew how to spot the most dangerous of the three.

‘Friend,’ Baldwin said, ‘please be calm. This man here is the father of a mistress who lives along this road, but we have not visited her home before. She only married earlier this year.’

‘What’s her name?’

Simon grunted. ‘Edith. She married Peter, son of-’

‘The merchant Charles? Oh, that’s all right. I can show you the way there,’ the lad said. Suddenly he was all affability. ‘Sorry, lordings, but there are so many strangers who cause mayhem now. Some little scrotes kicked in a couple of doors two nights ago, and when my mate Phil went to talk to them, they kicked him in too. Poor bastard’s up in his bed yet with a broken head. And then there’s been all the other murders outside the city too. Don’t blame you for coming here to stay the night. Dangerous all over the shire nowadays. There’s no law in the land.’

‘It was easy enough when we left,’ Baldwin said.

‘Aye, well, maybe that was a while ago. There are so many men wandering the roads now without any way to support themselves, if you know what I mean.’

As he spoke he took them up the road, along a short lane, and to a large limewashed front.

‘This is it,’ he said, rapping sharply on the door.

Baldwin and Simon thanked him, and Baldwin gave him a penny for his trouble. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m called Gil. Well, my name was Gilbert, but no one calls me that. Thank you, my lord. God speed you all!’ the watchman said as he left them, backing away respectfully with a happy smile on his face.

‘God speed,’ Baldwin said. ‘Be careful, my friend. As you say, the streets can be dangerous.’

Simon was not listening. The door had opened, and as soon as it did, he beamed with pleasure to see his daughter.

Edith’s face was one of utter shock at first as she registered who was waiting on her doorstep. Then, with a gasped ‘Father!’ she flung herself into his arms.