Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

Chapter Twenty-Five

Baldwin and Simon were walking with their wives a few yards in front of this hushed dispute, and thus saw nothing of Thomas’s rage or the Fleming’s delight.

Simon could see that his friend was frustrated, but could think of no way to relieve his mood. Baldwin, he knew, would worry at the problem until a solution presented itself to him, and only then would he be able to relax.

‘Did you learn anything from that boy?’ he asked.

‘Nothing – no. If I had been able to speak to him a little longer, I might have done, and yet perhaps I did find out something,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The lad is plainly terrified of the priest.’

‘Well, of course he is. Many people are,’ said Margaret. ‘The parish priest is the only man of any learning that a villein will ever meet. He’s the one who officiates at every critical ceremony in their lives.’

‘Especially in a small place like this,’ said Jeanne. ‘Here Stephen is the only man who can read: he’s the one who will tell them whether it is a fasting day or a meat one, which day of the week it is, and so on.’

Baldwin smiled at her. ‘I know the people here are peasants, but even my own villeins know what the day is,’ he said in a tone of mild reproof. It was all too common for those in a higher station of life to assume that serfs were little more intelligent than the oxen which they used to pull their wagons.

Jeanne shook her head, amused by his presumption. ‘I do not speak from idle foolishness, Baldwin. You forget that I have lived as Lady of a manor similar to this one. I know these people. They have no time for speculation, no time to play or enjoy leisure. Their lives are hard, geared to the weather and to the hours of daylight rather than some arbitrary notion such as a day’s name. It’s different for you and your peasants, living up at Cadbury, where the weather is warmer, and where the rain runs away rather than sinking into the ground to form mires, where trees grow straight and tall rather than bent and warped.’

‘Perhaps, but I do not know whether young Alan was scared of the figure of authority, or of Brother Stephen the man.’

Simon agreed. ‘In that case we need to find out more about this mysterious cleric, don’t we?’

Nicholas was in the courtyard when the procession returned from the church. He had ordered the other men to remain in the stable out of the widow’s sight, from respect for her feelings; he himself stood quietly near a rain-butt. He had been sharpening his knife, but he set his whetstone and dagger aside when the mourning party slowly made their way to the hall.

When the mistress was out of the way, he picked up his blade once more and tested it with the ball of his thumb. Still blunt – it was taking an age to put an edge on this one. He was about to bend to his task again when he became aware of his master hurrying towards him.

‘Nicholas? Come here. Listen to me, I have a job for you.’

Hugh had been waiting at the door. Seeing the party approach, he walked quickly inside to stir the warmed wine in the jugs by the fire. As he crouched there, Lady Katharine entered. She acknowledged him with a pale shadow of a smile, and gratefully took a large mug from him.

Hugh politely offered Anney a cup, but she refused with a quick shake of her head, and Daniel took it in her stead.

Then the guests were filing in, and Hugh was having to serve faster than he could manage. When the jugs had all been emptied, he hurried from the room and into the buttery, where he found Wat, mercifully sober.

‘Quick! Fill this lot,’ Hugh ordered and sat on a barrel. ‘Where’s Petronilla? She ought to be helping.’

‘I suppose she’s gone for another walk.’

‘Don’t talk rubbish!’

‘I still don’t understand why she had such filthy hands yesterday,’ Wat frowned.

‘What are you on about?’ Hugh demanded, and listened with surprise as Wat told how he had seen her the day before, all mucky with black soil smeared over her hands. Hugh was no fool and, after being servant to the bailiff for so long, he was able to make quick inferences, but for the present he only muttered grumpily, ‘Never mind her, you get more jugs filled, lad. The party in there will be dying of thirst soon.’

As soon as the jugs of warmed wine were ready, he took them into the hall and began topping up people’s pots and mugs; the flow of conversation, muted at first, became louder. Shortly after this, Petronilla came in. She too carried jugs, and she took her station near her mistress, although with many a confused glance at Thomas. Hugh could understand her feelings: she knew her master was Thomas now, and although she was still loyal to her mistress, she had no wish to damage her position with him.

Hugh pursed his lips and went to his master’s side. ‘Sir?’

Simon listened, his expression unchanging as his servant told him about the girl and how she had returned from the moors with her hands covered in peaty soil. ‘Interesting,’ he murmured at last. ‘Well done, Hugh.’

At the other side of the hall, Baldwin had been trying to get closer to the priest, but each time he made his way through the throng, Stephen moved on. Eventually Baldwin fetched up against a pillar, and he stood there, testily staring at the tonsured figure for some while before he realised someone was speaking to him.

‘Anney, my apologies, my mind was elsewhere.’

The maidservant gave him a mocking curtsey. ‘So kind of you to apologise to a poor villein like me.’

Baldwin thought she was an attractive-looking woman. Her face, although marked by channels of grief, some for the loss of her husband, some for the loss of her son, was still fresh and youthful, and she had a glowing complexion that many ladies of position would have given much of their wealth for.

‘A woman with your looks will always be able to force a poor, innocent knight to apologise,’ he riposted.

‘Thank you again, Sir Baldwin. I don’t know what I could have done to merit such compliments.’

‘Come, lady, you can hardly be unaware of your attractions.’

She gave a low, throaty chuckle, but there was little humour in it. ‘You mean to a man like my husband?’

‘Anney, I am sorry. I never intended to remind you of him.’

‘Why shouldn’t you? He was the only husband I ever knew. I don’t hate him. How could I, when he gave me my two boys? I believe you are hoping to speak to the priest?’

Baldwin nodded. Stephen was now at the opposite end of the room, deep in conversation with Thomas.

‘I thought so. You’ll find it difficult, Sir Baldwin. He doesn’t want to talk to you.’

‘Why?’

‘Perhaps he’s scared you’ll discover something.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as how he disliked the squire’s son,’ she said coolly.

‘What could he have had against so young a child? Herbert was only five or six.’

‘Five, but rowdy with it. He never attended to Stephen’s lessons, wouldn’t obey his sternest orders, and treated the priest like a figure of fun. Herbert also used to shoot at him with his sling whenever he could, and for that Stephen would give him a good hiding.’

‘Did Herbert’s parents realise what was going on?’

Anney gave a short laugh. ‘Squire Roger had won his son a place with Sir Reginald of Hatherleigh. What more could he ask but that his cleric should teach the boy the same way he’d already taught the sons of Sir Reginald? There was no difficulty there, I assure you.’

Her tone interested Baldwin. ‘You think he wanted to beat the child?’

‘Of course he did. He hates children – not only the squire’s son, all children. It wasn’t just Herbert he thrashed: my own boy was often whipped or punched by him, and never for any real misdemeanour, only because it pleased him to do so. Look at him! He has such a soft, womanly appearance, and yet he has a heart of flint!’

Baldwin followed her gaze. The priest was still chatting to Thomas, his face animated. That same hint of femininity that he had seen on first meeting the priest caught the knight’s attention once more. If it was not for the tonsure, Baldwin could have thought him a woman from this distance. It was hard to believe that such a person could enjoy hurting children, and yet that was Anney’s clear implication.

‘Are you sure he wasn’t merely trying to teach them obedience?’ he hazarded.

‘Master Herbert was a pleasant, well-spoken child, and my own boy is very well-behaved. He has to be, seeing as how he’s had to learn to fend for himself without a father. What a lad like him needs is the gentle hand of someone who appreciates him, not bullying from one who should know better. And as for poor Jordan…’

Baldwin expressed polite interest but the woman shook her head. ‘No, I’ll leave it to you to speak to him. Make up your own mind.’

‘What do you think of the Fleming?’ Baldwin asked after a moment.

‘Him? Haven’t you realised yet?’ she asked, and then gave a long sigh. ‘Look at him! Ever at my lady’s side, always there with a flattering word, a generous compliment. It’s like watching a knight courting a lady, isn’t it? The man wants her. He knows she won’t inherit all the estates, although I think that was a shock to him at first because he was hoping that he might be able to master the whole manor with luck, but he still hopes to win her and whatever Master Thomas thinks fit to endow her with.’

‘What?’ Baldwin demanded, startled. ‘But the woman has only just buried her man. She can’t remarry – it would leave her open to the charge of unchastity! She could be accused of lasciviousness – or of being guilty of infidelity while married!’

‘In short, she would be suspected of infamy,’ agreed the maid unabashed. ‘Yes, she would, but would the Fleming care? Next time you talk to him, look deep into his eyes, Sir Knight, especially when he smiles, because the smile never touches them. He is cold and unfeeling, no matter what his words might be. Watch him carefully, Sir Knight. He’s not what he appears to be.’

When Jordan met Alan out at the fields near the manor, he could see that his friend had already heard the news about Edmund.

‘Are you all right?’ Alan asked him quietly.

Jordan nodded. His eyes were red from weeping all the long night, and he felt utterly miserable, but he said nothing. He couldn’t rely on his voice, and didn’t want to scare the quarry.

Thirty feet away three pigeons were feeding from four tiny mounds of grain. Others were circling, unaware of the two boys. A fourth and a fifth gradually felt the desire for food overcome their fears, and plummeted downwards. When mere inches from the ground, they stretched their wings, halting their mad plunge, and landed gently. In a few minutes there were eight there, and only then did Alan spring his trap. He pulled quickly at a hempen string before him; the knot at the far end slipped free, and the framed net fell swiftly onto the eating birds, only two managing to make off.

Flapping, the six remaining pigeons could not escape, and the boys laughed with delight as they ran to the net, sitting down and wringing their necks before beginning to pluck and draw them.

‘Have you seen your dad yet?’ Alan asked.

‘No, he’s up at the manor, in their gaol there. I’ll go and see him later. We’ll need to take him food, I suppose. Alan, we must tell them about the shoe. Otherwise my dad might be hanged, and he had nothing to do with it.’

Alan appeared not to hear him. ‘I talked to that knight this morning.’

Jordan waited expectantly.

‘He seemed quite all right, really,’ Alan continued thoughtfully. ‘Didn’t seem to look down on me just ’cos I’m a villager or anything, but listened to what I thought.‘

Jordan watched as his friend pulled a grass shoot and sucked the sweet, pale end.

‘Maybe we should explain about the shoe,’ Alan murmured.

‘You think we should take it into the manor?’

Alan nodded slowly. ‘I think we should tell him about the priest.’

Hugh gratefully handed his jug to Edgar and walked through to the buttery. There he drew off a large pot of ale for himself and carried it outside for a breather.

The early promise of the bright morning had been false, and now thick white clouds smothered the sky like a blanket over the whole world. Hugh took a deep breath and let it out contentedly. This was his country, for he had been born and brought up on a farm outside Drewsteignton, and he knew the moors and their weather as well as he knew himself and his own moods.

Especially around here, the north-eastern part of the moors, he could recognise the way that the weather was likely to develop. The hill behind the manor led up to another, still more massive, and this one, Cosdon he had been able to see from his father’s farm when he was out with his sling and his staff protecting the family flocks from beasts of all kinds.

It was a comforting scene. At the other side of the yard he saw four or five men, the ones from Thomas’s party. They watched him narrowly as he came out, visibly relaxing as they recognised who he was. Hugh gave them an interested look. They had the appearance of a set of outlaws setting an ambush, but they scarcely took any notice of him, and Hugh sat on a moorstone block, comfortably certain that they were no threat to him. Soon he began to nod.