Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

Chapter Eighteen

Baldwin’s thumb did not hurt, it was completely dead to all sensation, but as he surveyed the land ahead, he meditatively sucked at it, certain that it would start to throb before long.

They had gone all the way up to the top of the hill following this track, and now both were carefully studying the ground.

‘Well, Baldwin?’ Simon asked at last.

‘I have no idea,’ admitted the knight frankly. ‘It looks like three separate paths through the ferns, which have met here, at this larger patch.’

The rain was now only a feeble reminder of the recent downpour, but it still trickled unmercifully down Baldwin’s face from his soaked hair. He gave the heavens a black look. ‘It’s ridiculous to remain here guessing. Let’s make our way back.’

He motioned down to the stream, and Simon nodded.

‘And on the way,’ Baldwin continued, waving his hand, ‘I’ll clean this up in the stream.’

Their path to the water was slippery down the steep slope, but at least it wasn’t far. Soon they were at the bottom, and Baldwin saw that they had arrived back at the same plateau they had seen earlier.

‘What are you doing here?’ Brother Stephen demanded, getting up from his seat on a rock.

‘Brother, I am glad to see you,’ Baldwin said disingenuously. ‘We were walking about here when the rain set in, and weren’t sure which way to go, and then I fell and did this.’

The priest stared at him, and Baldwin was struck by his expression. The long, regular, feminine features were twisted, the brilliant eyes red and raw, while the cheeks were pale and scratched in places. He looked like a man who had peered into the pits of hell. However, as his gaze fell on Baldwin’s thumb, a semblance of his normal self took over as he helped Baldwin to the bank of the stream and made him dip the thumb deep in the cool water.

Baldwin was grateful for his care, but couldn’t help glancing speculatively down while the priest helped him, and then he found it very hard to drag his attention away from the two prints lying side-by-side on the damp soil: the prints of his shoe next to the nearly identical ones of the monk.

Alan and Jordan skirted round the outer wall of the orchard before they could at last stand up straight once more. They trotted off towards their village, and spoke not a word until they came to Edmund’s house. Here Alan took the small bundle from the younger boy.

‘I’ll keep this at home in case he tries anything.’

Jordan nodded. His friend’s face was pale in the gloomy light, and after what had happened to them over the last few days, that was no surprise. Now, with this evidence to prove the cleric’s crime, at least they should be safe from his vengeance. Jordan had suffered beatings from many in the vill before, but no one had assaulted him with the same violence as Brother Stephen.

Jordan watched Alan scuff his way slowly through the dirt to the door of his cottage. It was late morning now, and Jordan’s belly was rumbling.

Christiana would have his pottage ready: a bowl of cabbage and onion, garlic and leek, boiled with a few of the remaining dried peas from the last year’s crop. Apart from the rabbit he’d shot, there had been no meat since Candlemas.

He had been fortunate – God, he was lucky! – on the day that the squire had dropped from his horse. Everyone had been so busy rushing around wondering what to do, no one had had time to execute Squire Roger’s last expressed wish to see Jordan beaten.

At the time he had been out in the shaw behind the house trying to clean some of the mud from his knees and feet. He’d heard the noise of horses, then the rasping voice of the squire, and he’d quickly sneaked round to the front of the house. He’d immediately thought that his father was in trouble – about to be arrested.

The altercation that followed was terrifying. Here was the man whom the whole village went in fear of, the most powerful man any of them was ever likely to meet, and he was calling for him, Jordan, to be punished. Yet the boy could cope with that. A thrashing was only a momentary thing; a few rubs and the pain dissipated. No, worse was seeing his father struck senseless as the whipper-in obeyed the squire’s command.

The boy did not idolise his father, but Edmund was his liege. It had been oddly galling to see him resorting to pleading with the squire, and worse to see him collapse as he was knocked aside.

Now Jordan was home. He paused at the door. His father had been drinking sulkily ever since that day, and the more he drank, the more the family suffered. Since the news of their pending eviction, he had taken to thrashing Christiana or the children at the slightest provocation.

Matters hadn’t improved even with the news that the family could stay in their house, for being allowed to stay wasn’t enough – not when they were to be made serfs again. His father was furious, bitter that his freedom had been taken from him. Edmund had come back from that meeting demanding ale, and then punched Christiana when she remonstrated that he was drinking too much and the family couldn’t afford it.

These thoughts flashed through Jordan’s mind as he stood with his hand on the wooden catch. There was no sound from within and the silence was intimidating. It was almost as if the house had been ransacked, and even now a man waited behind the door, ready to spring out at him. There was no reason why his father should have gone out, but he might have decided to visit another cottage where there was more ale. He did that sometimes when Christiana was brewing a fresh barrel.

Steeling himself, Jordan shoved the door wide. His mother sat murmuring a curse in a slow, steady monotone. There was no food bubbling in the pot, no welcoming scent of herbs and greens, and no sign of his father. Jordan’s six-year-old sister Molly stood at Christiana’s side, hugging herself in fear, not knowing how to calm or soothe their mother.

Jordan gazed about the room. ‘Where’s Dad, Mummy?’

‘He’s been taken.’ Her voice was flat, but the boy felt suddenly weak with horror as she continued hollowly, ‘They say he killed the squire’s boy.’

Petronilla entered the screens warily. The shock of Nicholas’s hand on her breast hadn’t faded, nor had the disgust she had felt. He had assumed he could take her, that was what he had meant, and she felt demeaned; abused. She was determined never to allow herself to be left alone with him again.

She heard the Fleming and his man walk through the screens and decided to test her luck; she must clear the place before her mistress came down from her solar.

There was no sound from the hall, and she carefully peeped inside. To her relief she saw the place was empty, and she strode inside with confidence. The fresh rushes she had laid gave off a pleasant odour, and although the house was still and quiet, sunk in the gloom of the double mourning, the aroma of grass and meadows gave the place a slight hint of sunshine, of pleasant days to come.

The girl smiled, collecting the dirty bowls and plates, jugs and drinking pots. It was sad to think that the young boy was gone, but she was pragmatic. She had known three of her own brothers die at birth, and a sister, before her mother herself had passed on, exhausted, at the age of three-and-twenty. Life was continually ending – that was a simple fact. The sooner the house got back to normal the better, she felt.

On hearing steps in the yard, she gathered up all the remaining crocks onto her tray and hurried out to the buttery. There she paused. The argument between Thomas and van Relenghes was clearly audible, and she held her breath, convinced that there would be a fight – but when it all fizzled out, she regretfully set about her chores.

After some while there were voices in the hall, and she obeyed a call to serve Lady Katharine. Her mistress was accompanied by Jeanne and Margaret, and Petronilla was sent to fetch them wine.

It was later, when she was filling jugs, that she found the boy. Wat lay on his side beneath a barrel, his jug. On his face was fixed a broad smile of sheer delight while he snored softly, the empty pot rolling gently beside him.

At the sight, Petronilla sank down on a stool, her hand resting gently on her belly, and a small smile played at her mouth as she wondered what her child would look like at Wat’s age.

It was then that she heard the low whistle. There at the doorway stood Nicholas, and Petronilla felt her previous good humour dissolve.

‘Maid, I am sorry if I upset you earlier,’ he said. I didn’t realise you’d be offended.‘

‘How would you expect a woman to feel?’

Nicholas gave a self-deprecating simper. ‘It didn’t occur to me that…’

‘That I’d care!’ she hissed.

It was no good. He could see that nothing he could say would alter her feelings towards him. He had tried to soothe her, mainly, it had to be said, so that he could attempt to win her over, for she was very comely. But now he became irritated in his own right. He was here at great risk to himself, and that reflection made him impatient. ‘Well, why don’t we agree on a compromise?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I could give you a penny for the night?’ he asked hopefully, and then ran before the pot could hit his head.

Baldwin was not in the best of moods when the sodden trio arrived back at the manor. He stood a moment in the screens, arms held out at either side, watching the water stream from his sleeves, and gave a sigh of sheer frustration. It was not unknown for the weather to change suddenly for the worse, even in Crediton and Cadbury, but to have got so sodden so quickly was vile.

Rather than attempting to dry his clothing before the fire in the hall, Simon had hurried off to fetch a dry tunic and hose, while the priest went to his chapel for a clean robe. Baldwin copied them, donning a clean linen shirt and tunic – one his wife had made just before their wedding. Glancing at his sword-belt, he buckled it on once more, but his training took over, and he pulled the blade from its scabbard to check its condition before leaving the room. The rain-guard had worked well, the leather disc between hilt and blade preventing water from seeping into the scabbard and rusting the beautiful blue steel. He nodded happily, wiped it with an oiled cloth, and thrust it back in its sheath.

With his hair dried on a towel and combed straight, his new sword a comforting weight on his hip, and wearing a fresh tunic with richly embroidered neck and sleeves, he felt more like a knight again and less like an impoverished peasant.

When he entered the hall, his wife and Margaret were still sitting by the fire with Lady Katharine, all of them plying their needles. Jeanne smiled at him, but as he bent to kiss her, she noticed his thumb. ‘My love, what have you done?’

‘I fell and broke my thumbnail – nothing more.’

Lady Katharine raised her face, bleared and miserable from weeping, but still with that strength of character showing in her piercing grey eyes. ‘You should be more careful, Sir Baldwin,’ she said quietly. ‘The moors are treacherous.’

‘I learned that much today, Lady,’ Baldwin said with an ironic smile.

His wife looked serious. She had lived at Liddinstone, a manor owned by the Abbot of Tavistock, and was only too well aware of how dangerous the moors could be. Her husband was no fool, and could protect himself against outlaws, but that was no guarantee that he would be equally secure against the elements. She was about to say so, when Simon entered. He walked over to Baldwin, a frown distorting his features.

‘Thomas has arrested the farmer.’

Only a few minutes after the two men had hurried out, James van Relenghes and his guard came in.

Godfrey walked to the side of the fireplace and leaned against the wall. To Margaret he was the picture of cool self-possession. His composure was almost unnatural. He glanced at her, gave a brief smile, but then his attention flew to the door as he heard steps. Seeing Petronilla, he appeared to relax; his shoulders dropped and he slouched comfortably, as though, since there was no immediate threat to his master, he could afford to be at rest.

James didn’t notice how wary his servant was on his behalf. Godfrey was being paid: he should be loyal, and that was an end to the matter. The Fleming strolled languidly to the fire, looking at the ladies’ needlework as he passed, and complimenting Lady Katharine on hers, praising the fineness of her stitches, and taking a seat nearby where he could watch her. Unfortunately, his words had the opposite impact to that which he wished. She shuddered and called for her maidservant to fetch wine, rolling up her work and setting it on the floor at her side, composedly resting both hands in her lap, trying to hide the turmoil she felt.

She hadn’t wished to hear the two men in the yard, but it had been almost impossible to miss their shouting match through her open window, and now everything van Relenghes said to her felt wrong, somehow – false. On the face of it, his words had appeared reasonable enough, for he had been a friend of her husband’s, and yet… even that simple fact seemed odd now. Squire Roger had told his stories about fighting in France and Wales so often, Katharine felt she knew most of them by heart, and he had never once spoken of a Sir James van Relenghes. If she had been a young maiden, she might have thought, as Thomas clearly did, that the Fleming was courting her, and yet there was no hint of true affection in his manner, more a calculation.

But there was no point in his attempting to win her. If she had been a wealthy widow, one with lands or an enormous dowry, there could have been logic to it, but as matters stood, surely there was nothing she possessed which he could desire.

She daringly glanced in his direction, and felt her heart lurch as she saw his face light as if with love.

It made her feel physically sick.