The Abbot's Gibbet

21

Simon and Baldwin sent Edgar to get their horses saddled and bridled, and ran across the court to the Abbot’s lodging. A monk told them he was in his private chapel, and they had to wait, chafing at the delay, while another monk went in and asked the Abbot to see them.

“My friends – do you have news from the girl?”

Simon told of the missing girl, and the Abbot froze. “But… the Venetians have gone.”

“When?” Baldwin asked quickly.

“After the rabble came to the gate. Both Pietro and their servant were terrified by the appearance of so many ruffians calling for their blood. Someone had roused them against bankers. Pietro insisted that they should leave. His father was unwilling at first, not wanting to lose his deal with me, but I refused it, and he agreed to leave then.”

“It would appear that Pietro had an ulterior motive. The crowd at the gate gave him his excuse, and he took his chance.”

“Sir Baldwin, you must find them.”

“We shall try, sir. But where they could have gone is a matter of guesswork. We will need to hunt them down carefully.”

“I shall come to the yard with you. It’s impossible for me to join you on the Feast Day of the Abbey’s saint, but at least I can make sure you are sent off with as many men as possible.”

So saying, Abbot Robert led the way out of the room. A monk was outside in the Prayle, and the Abbot called him over, telling him to prepare men to join the hunt. He scurried off and the Abbot and the others continued on their way.

Edgar stood waiting with the horses, and Baldwin took the reins from his servant. “The trouble is, we have no idea where they might have gone. Do you have a hunter used to tracking animals?”

“I do, but he’s not here, he’s out working.”

Simon said, “Surely they’ll make straight for the coast? Plymouth would be best for them.”

“Perhaps,” Baldwin mused. “But the port there is very small. The chances of finding a ship before we catch up with them are remote, unless they have a ship waiting.”

“Did they leave in a great hurry?” Simon asked the Abbot. “What about their clothes and belongings – are all gone?”

“I don’t know, I… You,” he called to a lay brother. The man ambled over, a spade on his shoulder like a weapon. “Go to the guest-master and find out whether the Venetians left anything behind. Quickly, brother!”

The man dropped his shovel and hesitated, wondering whether to pick it up. Catching sight of the Abbot’s face, he let it lie and ran off. The Abbot sighed. “Only a few hours ago all was normal. It was merely a hectic Feast Day for St. Rumon, and now I have lost a novice to a murder, a pair of guests are to be hunted like venison, and…”

“My lord Abbot!”

Champeaux glanced at Baldwin with surprise. “Eh?”

“Hunted! Your hounds!”

He stared for moment, then groaned and slapped his forehead. “I must be the greatest fool alive!” and dashed off toward the River Gate. A few moments later he returned with a man, narrow-faced, and with a sallow complexion. Bright blue eyes glittered under dark brows. “This is my berner, the master of my scent hounds.”

“Berner, you have harrier hounds?”

“We have – twenty couple.”

“Could they chase men?”

He chuckled. “They could chase an ant from its smell.”

There was a commotion from the guests’ quarters, and when they turned to see the cause, they saw the lay brother coming toward them at a run. “Abbot, the servant is still here!”

Seeing the berner shrug and start to make his way back to his beloved hounds, Baldwin called to him, “Master berner, bring ten couples here immediately, and a horse for yourself. We shall be hunting men.”

Simon turned to the monk. “Where is he?”

“In the guestroom.”

“Good. Come on, Baldwin.”

Guests could be placed in various parts of the Abbey depending upon their rank and importance. Those of lowly position would stay in the communal accommodation above the Great Gate itself, while the most important would stay in the Abbot’s own private rooms alongside his hall. For others, when this was already being used, there was the main guest block overlooking the river, and it was in this building that the Venetians had been placed. Simon walked up the stairs to the first floor, and only when he arrived at the door did it occur to him that the man inside might be desperate and dangerous. He was uncommonly glad to hear the steady steps of Baldwin and his man behind him as he reached for his sword and tested the hilt in his hand. He glanced at the knight, then opened the door in a rush and burst in, drawing his sword as he went. He fetched up against a wall, holding the weapon before him.

“The sword is unnecessary, Simon,” he heard Baldwin murmur as the knight walked in.

In the far corner of what was a broad and long room, he saw the servant Luke folding clothes and stowing them into a light cloth bag, suitable for dangling from a saddle. The man stared in astonishment, eyeing Simon as if doubting his sanity.

“You are the servant of Antonio and Pietro da Cammino?” Baldwin asked, walking quietly toward the man. He nodded, which was a relief to the knight, who had feared that he might not speak English. “What is your name?”

“Luke, sir.”

“Good. Luke, do you know where they have gone?”

“No, sir,” Luke said, his gaze still fixed upon Simon as the bailiff carefully felt for his scabbard and thrust his sword home. “They collected their things and went; I don’t know where.”

“Did you help them pack?”

“Yes, sir. After the shouting and everything at the gate, Pietro came straight up here, and told me to pack his things.”

“How did he seem?” Baldwin asked.

“Very upset, sir. Flustered and cross. He said I must prepare to leave immediately, and from his look I imagined something must have happened.”

Simon shook his head. “They already have a good head start on us, let’s get going.”

His friend shook his head and held up a hand. “Wait, Simon. Let’s not rush off before we have to. The hounds aren’t ready yet, and we don’t have a posse. Now, Luke, you say Pietro was flustered and angry. Did he give you any indication what had angered him?”

“No, sir. He only said that he’d been a fool, and went out as soon as I’d started packing his things. Then he came back a little later with his father, and Antonio seemed depressed. He said nothing to me at all while he was here, just paced up and down the room.”

The knight remained staring fixedly at the servant. “When you were in Bayonne, weren’t you attacked by a mob there?”

Luke nodded. “Yes, it was fearsome, being chased like that. We had to leave almost immediately.”

“Did you know Pietro saw Avice’s father today? He told Pietro to leave and never see his daughter again.”

Simon interrupted, “Baldwin, is this really necessary?”

“Pietro must have seen the girl at some point, or how would he know she would go with him?”

“Fine, so the lad went to see her, and when she told him she’d be happy to go away with him, he came back here and prepared to leave. Can we get a move on now?”

“But there was this crowd at the Abbey gates, Simon. Was that just a fortuitous coincidence? And the mob dispersed as soon as the Abbot spoke to them. Did Pietro and his father really feel so threatened that they had to leave immediately? If he knew Avice would go with him anyway, what was the hurry? He could surely have waited until dark and gone then.”

“Baldwin, you’re quibbling over details, and all the time they’re getting further away. Come on, let’s be after them!”

“Patience, Simon. Now, Luke, I do not believe that Antonio would have rushed off just because of a crowd making a noise. He would be safe in the Abbey here. Why would he agree to go in such a hurry? Enough hurry, for example, to leave you behind, Luke,” Baldwin finished imperturbably.

Luke stared back. He knew he had to make the choice whether to protect his masters and hide their secrets, in which case he might be viewed with suspicion and possibly even accused with them, or discard them utterly and protect himself. He glanced quickly at the bailiff.

Simon gave an exasperated groan and dropped onto a bench. “I assume you have some reason for wanting to wait? Maybe the lad was in a hurry to go because he had killed the monk, and now we know he abducted the girl…”

“Simon, we know nothing of the sort! There is nothing to connect him to the murder of Peter, and we don’t even know that she wasn’t a willing accomplice in their departure. At this moment we know nothing about the matter.”

“Sir, my master Antonio was accused by the girl’s father of being a fraud, of inventing a bogus scheme to steal from the Abbot.”

“That made him suddenly run away?” Simon asked dubiously.

“Sir, I refused to go with them. I’ll tell you all I know, but only if I can be exempted from blame for what they have done.”

Baldwin nodded. “Speak!”

“I first met Antonio and his son two years ago in France. They had lost their servant to a disease, and they were glad enough to have me instead.

“Last year we went to Bayonne to the fair, staying in a small inn. At the time, I thought it was to find new stuffs to sell, for they had made a fortune out of selling a great stock of Toledo metalwork, but then I began to have doubts.”

Simon was interested despite himself. The servant’s story was halting, but the bailiff could see that he was coming quickly to his point.

“Antonio spent much time talking to the Abbot there, and whenever I overheard them, it was always about the same thing – how Antonio had a fleet and was looking for the best suppliers of goods to transport to Florence. It sounded strange to me, for I had never seen any evidence of a single ship, let alone a fleet.

“Then one night Antonio came to me and instructed me to pack everything and prepare to leave. I thought he had lost interest in the Abbot and wanted to avoid his bill for stabling and food, so I did as I was told, but when I heard Antonio talking to his son, he was scornful and contemptuous. I had no idea why; I just did as I was told. When all was packed, Antonio himself led the way to the stables, and I found that a pony had been laden with other stuff, but I thought it was just the things that Antonio had bought from the fair. It never occurred to me… Well, I’ll come to that.

“We walked the horses from the stables behind our inn, and once we were outside the town, rode off. Some twenty or so miles farther on, there was another inn, and we rested there for a morning before setting off again, but before we had gone far, there was a sound of charging horses behind us, and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw a knight and others racing along. Antonio saw them at the same time, and cried to us to whip up.

“I didn’t know what was going on, but if they were after us, whether they were outlaws or lawful posse, I didn’t care: I didn’t want to be caught by so many warlike men miles from anywhere. Just like the others, I clapped spurs to my mount and tried to escape. But the pony was a heavy burden. Its load was too heavy for it to hurry, and the men were gaining on us. I tried whipping it, but although I cut its hide in many places, it couldn’t keep up. In the end I let it go.”

“And?”

Baldwin’s voice was quiet, but it shattered the silence like a mace hitting glass. The servant looked up again. “Sir, when Antonio saw what I had done, he was in a towering rage. He said, ‘What was the point of stealing all that pewter if you’re going to let them take it all back?’ I was horrified: I’d had no idea he was stealing it. Maybe there are some things I’ve done in my life I’m not proud of, but I’m no thief, and the thought of robbing so many, and all under the Abbot’s guarantee… It was like stealing from the Abbot himself.

“We carried on, and Antonio managed to trade a few items and keep us from starving, and I had thought when we came here to Tavistock, it was so that he could start to rebuild his business. When he came in this morning, just like he had in Bayonne, I realized he was doing something wrong again, and I decided to leave them. If they want a hemp necklace, they’re welcome. I don’t!”

“And,” Baldwin prompted, “what else? Come, we know so much already.”

Edgar was standing at the door, and through it he could see the hounds milling in the court. Men were arriving; the mounted watchmen placed around the fair to protect travellers had been called to form the posse. He considered telling his master, but seeing Baldwin’s concentration, he remained silent.

“Sir, Pietro met this girl, Avice, and fell in love with her – and, I think, she with him. He arranged to meet her in the tavern, so that he and she could allow their fathers to talk and discuss business, with the hope that both would find the other amenable to their marriage, but to Pietro’s disgust, his father insisted that we should leave. Sir, while we were in Bayonne, there was a merchant we saw several times. He was in the tavern that night too. When Antonio saw him, he rushed out, almost knocking down a man coming in, and Pietro all but drew his dagger to strike the man down; it was only me holding his arm that stopped him. Outside, Antonio told us that he’d seen the merchant from Bayonne. Pietro hadn’t, but Antonio was absolutely certain, and he told us to avoid the tavern in future so that we could not be recognized. Then he and I returned to the Abbey.”

“And Pietro?”

“He remained: he said he wanted to wait for his girl and parents, hoping he would be able to talk to her or persuade them to go to another tavern.”

“So it was him,” Simon breathed.

Baldwin scratched his chin reflectively. “What else?”

Luke was committed now. He closed his eyes briefly, then held Baldwin’s steadily as he completed his story. “Sir, this morning Pietro was in a rage about a monk who had been ‘pestering,’ as he called it, his woman. He went out to see her, and when he came back, like I say, he was pale and anxious. I didn’t want to question him – I know what he’s capable of. He can have an evil temper. Now I hear the monk’s dead.”

“And you have formed your own conclusion, obviously,” Baldwin said, and stood. “Very well, Edgar, I can hear them; there’s no need to wave like that. Luke, you will remain here until we return. Come along, Simon, what are you waiting for? We have men to catch.”

In the court they found the Abbot talking to the berner with men cursing and swearing at the hounds, which slavered and slobbered at the horses’ hooves. Abbot Champeaux himself seemed unaware of the mayhem, and Baldwin assumed that he was so used to hunting and the din created by his harriers that this was an almost relaxing sound to him. The knight asked the Abbot to see to it that Luke was held, then prepared to mount his horse.

The knight was pleased to note, as he swung his leg over the back of his Arab mare, that the hounds all appeared to be from good stock. They were of a good tan color, and larger than his own, with wide nostrils set in long muzzles, and all had powerful chests with strong shoulders and hips that pointed not only to their being able to maintain a steady speed, but also to their ability to bring down heavy game. Baldwin did not miss the heavy hunting collars, all of thick engraved leather, that the Abbot had invested in for his pack. The collars were not overly ostentatious, they weren’t studded with silver or even iron, but the knight could see that they were expensive, and the sight made him give a grin. The Abbot was proud of his harriers.

Baldwin hoped that his pride would today be justified.

“You will send these to the Abbey for us,” Margaret stated, preferring to assume the man’s compliance than offer him an opportunity to refuse. Miserably, he nodded. He had already been forced to bargain away more than he had intended, and it was worth agreeing just to dispose of the harpy.

Jeanne kept a straight face as Margaret sternly instructed the man, but as soon as they had gone a little way along the alley, she began to giggle. “The poor devil was glad to see the back of you.”

“I’d have been worried if he wasn’t,” said Margaret complacently. “That could only mean he thought he had the better of the deal, and I wouldn’t want him to make too much profit from me. I haven’t been too hard on him – he was happy enough to agree to my conditions in the end.”

“Of course, my lady,” Jeanne said, giving her a mock curtsey. “He should be grateful that you deigned to visit his stall, let alone graced him with your business.”

“The cloth will suit my sideboard.”

“Yes, and the other will look good on you,” Jeanne said.

Margaret laughed. She had convinced the man that dealing with the bailiff of Lydford’s wife was potentially good for his business, and he had initially scrambled to show her the choicest materials he had, but his enthusiasm for the talk had waned when he realized that her aim was to win the best cloth for the price of the cheapest. “It’s not my fault,” she said. “I was raised as a farmer’s daughter, and we were taught to bargain and save as much money as we could. My mother would have been horrified to see me throwing away good money just because I couldn’t be bothered to haggle a bit.”

“If she was like my uncle’s wife in Burgundy, she’d be just as shocked to see you spending so much on a few choice materials.”

Margaret ignored the tone of mild reproof, her interest fired by the comment. “Your aunt and uncle raised you?”

“Yes, after my parents died, they took me with them.”

“It must have been a great adventure to go so far,” Margaret said, with a trace of jealousy. The furthest she had travelled was to Tiverton.

“Not for a girl of only three years. I had no idea what my home was like, I hardly remembered the house, and within a short space I had forgotten what my mother looked like.”

“Surely not!”

Jeanne glanced at her, hearing the note of disbelief. Too late she remembered that Margaret had a daughter, and gave an apologetic grimace. “I’m sure if I’d been a little older I would have been able to recall her face, but I was very young to lose both parents.”

“Of course. But tell me, wasn’t your uncle sad to see you marry someone who lived so far from him? It must have been an awful wrench for you to have lost two families when you married.”

Jeanne surveyed a stall of hats. “Not really, no. Having lost my parents, I did not much mind losing an uncle. And he didn’t miss me. As far as he was concerned, I was a constant drain on his purse, and little more. It can only have been a relief to him when I left. He’d invested a lot of money making sure I was well turned out, and primed in etiquette and the proper manners for my station in life. When I was snapped up by Ralph de Liddinstone, I think uncle saw that as proof of success in some way: he’d got rid of an expensive member of his household. It was the same as if he’d sold off one of his more useless serfs to a buyer for a reasonable sum.”

There was a note of sadness, of accepting a miserable position with equanimity, and Margaret suddenly felt she had an insight into the woman’s life. Margaret had always been loved, from the day she was born by her parents, and latterly by the man she had wed and their daughter; Jeanne had never known such all-devouring love. She had been unwanted as a child, but her uncle had accepted her when she was thrust upon him, and when he could, he had disposed of her as quickly as possible, to a man who apparently had not loved her, but had instead treated her like any other possession, something to be thrashed when recalcitrant.

It made Margaret push her arm through the other’s in a sympathetic gesture, and though Jeanne looked quite surprised, she was obviously grateful as well.

They were still linked arm-in-arm when they came across a small group of actors in a miracle play, and both stopped as if by mutual agreement to watch.

The story was so badly acted that Margaret was not sure what it was about. At one point she felt that it might be about the Last Judgment, but it was hard to be sure, partly because she had never been educated, but also because she found her attention wandering during sermons – that was when her daughter began to lose interest in proceedings, searching around for something to do, and she made it hard to concentrate.

Jeanne was unimpressed by the play, but someone in the crowd caught her attention.

It was a man, probably only in his early twenties, who stood with his son at the edge of the audience. All the time the actors were speaking their lines, he pointed to them, explaining what was happening, and when his son complained of not being able to see enough, he caught the child up and sat him on his shoulders.

Unbidden, the thought came to her mind that Baldwin would be as gentle and kindly if he were a father. It made her give a quick smile.

There was no point in giving the harriers a scent of Antonio’s or Pietro’s clothing; they would be on horseback, and the chance of a hound catching a whiff of the men was remote. Instead, the dogs were given an old saddle-blanket from Antonio’s stable – one which had been worn by his horse. The berner was dubious, thinking that his harriers might confuse the beast with another horse, but it was the best they could do. When the hounds had all snuffed the blanket, the berner shouldered a large leather bag and mounted. The hunt moved off into the street.

The traffic had been so great that the hounds could not discern the trail, and Simon glanced at Baldwin. “If they went to the moor we’ll have time to find them later. I would suggest either the road to Brentor or the coast. Surely they would try to escape by one of those routes?”

“I think so. We’ll head to Plymstock and see what we can find; if nothing, we can double back and test the road to Brentor, and the moors last.”

So saying, Baldwin called to the berner, and the cavalcade set off at a lively canter, the harriers moving like a solid mass. They reminded Baldwin of a swarm of bees; each was individual, but acted as a part of a whole. Tails up and wagging, they gave every appearance of delight at being released from their kennels and having a new quarry to chase.

The road led past the Abbey’s orchards and fishponds, and soon they were out of the town itself. At their left lay the midden reeking with the town’s waste, and townspeople were at its edge, hurling rubbish in and retreating swiftly. The noisome stench wafted over the road, and Simon was amused by the reaction of the riders. Some fell silent, a few covering their faces with their hoods, while others resorted to earthy humor, chortling at the disgust of their companions. Simon himself disliked the smell, but was used to it; Baldwin, he saw, curled his lip in disgust – the knight was from the country, and this putrefying stink was never so concentrated where he lived. There human waste was collected in ash to dry and lose its virulence until it could be spread on the fields to help the crops grow.

Baldwin was glad to be past the midden. The country air smelled sweeter beyond it, as if nature had put up an invisible barrier on the distance that man could pollute the atmosphere. Now instead of that malodorous reek, he smelled the fresh-cut grasses in the meadow, the sweet scent of herbs and occasionally the clean fragrance of wild garlic.

They rode on until they had travelled over a mile, and in all that distance the hounds picked up nothing. The berner worked them well and had them circling at either side of the road in case their prey had left it to avoid leaving a trace, but the harriers sniffed for a while, then returned to him, heads cocked on one side in enquiry, tails wagging slowly, and finally Simon had to admit defeat. “Let’s try the Brentor road,” he said.

The berner waved ahead. “There’s a track up there takes us back to Hurdwick. We can pick up the Brentor road there, rather than going all the way back to Tavistock and up.”

Simon nodded, and the berner spurred his horse on, calling to his harriers as he went. The rest of the posse trailed after.

After the events of the last couple of days, Baldwin was relieved to have some physical task to perform. It left his mind free to roam: at first over the things he had heard from the Venetians’ servant, but soon his thoughts turned back to Jeanne.

She was so beautiful, she was daunting. Baldwin was convinced she reciprocated his feelings, but it was hard to imagine why – he was not arrogant enough to lie to himself, and he knew that he was hardly the perfect suitor. He had only a small farm and estate, held under his duties of service to his lord, and even his manner of dress – and here he glanced down at his worn but comfortable tunic with a wry grimace – was an embarrassment, as Margaret had pointed out to him.

The berner led them off to the right at a fork, and they were on a smaller, grassy track that wound between thick hedges and ditches until they came to a crossroads where the berner took the harriers north. This trail soon turned back to the northeast, so that they were heading back almost parallel to their first route from the town. It passed by several small vills and bartons, and when they came to another crossed road, the berner let the dogs circle in case they might find a scent, but again they betrayed no excitement.

“Berner,” Simon called, “is this the Brentor road?”

“No, sir,” the berner called back calmly. “This is the road to Milton Abbot, but I wanted to make sure the buggers hadn’t come here instead of up to Brentor.”

Simon nodded. The berner obviously knew his business, and was checking all the roads which radiated from Tavistock. The abbey town sat in its valley with roads leading to north, east and west, though none south over the moors at the other side of the river, and the berner was working each trail as if it was the worn path of a deer in his search for the Venetians. They set off again to the next road. This was the one which led up the hill toward Brentor.

The berner set his harriers to test the road, egging them on with enthusiastic cries and whistles, and waited while they milled at the crossroads. Simon watched, the tip of his tongue protruding between his lips in his eagerness to see them take off, but then he sighed as dogs began to stop and sit and scratch. All around him, Simon could sense the men relaxing in their seats, letting lances fall a little from the vertical, slumping, one or two chatting. “Looks like we should have gone for the moors instead,” he said to Baldwin with resignation, but before the knight could comment, the berner edged closer.

“Look at her, sir.”

Following his pointing finger, Simon saw a bitch trotting slowly up and down a little distance away from the others. She paused, glancing back at the pack, her head set to one side with a comical expression of doubt, her brow wrinkled.

“She’s just found the trail of a fox or something,” the bailiff said dismissively, and turned to Baldwin.

To his surprise, the knight could barely control his excitement. Baldwin often hunted with his own hounds, and he recognized the signs. The bitch was dubious because of the strength of other scents, and he watched with bated breath. “Master berner?”

“Yes, sir, I reckon so. The bastards came this way,” the man said, after a scathing look at Simon.

The bailiff stared from one to the other. “You can tell from a dog doing that?”

“She’s the best, sir. She’s just making sure, you’ll soon hear.”

All at once there was a sharp yelping from her, which was taken up by the other hounds in the pack as they joined her, urgently setting their noses to the dirt of the road and sounding off as they caught the elusive scent. The barking and howling took on a persuasive quality, and the men all round began shifting in their saddles and gripping their arms more firmly as they saw that the hounds had the trail at last. Suddenly the pack moved.

It was an awesome experience for Simon. He had never before joined a large hunt and seeing the magnificent creatures in full spate was a little like watching the torrent in full flood rushing down the Lydford Gorge. The leader of the pack set up a long baying howl, then went silent with a dread purpose as he began to trot northward, the rest taking up position behind until he was the point of an arrowhead of harriers making off. As younger hounds caught up with him, the leader snapped at them over his shoulder, and hurried his pace. Others increased their speed to keep up, and there was soon an inevitability to their onward rush, which was made menacing by its sudden silence. The harriers were reserving all their strength for the chase and would not sound out again until they had caught their prey and held it at bay.

The berner whipped his mount without another word, his face showing his excitement and when Simon glanced at Baldwin, he saw the same look on the knight’s face. “Come on!”

It was like starting a horse race. Clapping spurs to his rounsey’s flanks, Simon felt the power surge through his horse’s hindquarters as it sprang forward with a sudden explosion of energy, and he had to crouch and grip its flanks with his knees to keep his seat. From behind him he heard the clatter of horseshoes on stone, then a quick scattering of hoofbeats on the densely packed earth of the roadway as riders kicked their mounts and found their own position in the melee, each man thrusting others from his path to make a clear space in which his horse might be able to forge ahead. A horse reared at his side, but the rider remained in control, and forced the animal to twist in mid-air, forelegs flailing, until it was facing the right way, and then he gave it its head.

The discordant, stumbling sound of many horses falteringly finding their pace gradually settled into a rhythmic drumming as they all cantered in unison, and suddenly the sound became a solid thundering. To Simon it was as if the horses were copying the pack. The harriers had formed a solid wedge-shaped group, the leader out in front, while the men behind formed another behind the berner. Baldwin, he saw, was restraining his Arab, which wanted to gallop off. She had the power and speed to overhaul any other mount in the group.

There was an awesome noise: leather squeaked and harnesses jangled as they rushed on, ever faster, the wind hissing and booming in Simon’s ears and all but deafening him, the clap and snap of cloaks as they billowed in the wind like sails, and over all the pounding, unified and terrible in its violent force, of the hooves hammering the ground beneath them. For a short second, the bailiff wondered what he would feel like seeing a chivalry of mounted knights charging toward him, but thrust the idea aside. His concentration was needed merely to stay on his beast.

They began to climb a hill, passing Forches Field where the Abbot kept his gallows, and rode over a short plain. At the far side, the hounds streamed around a loudly cursing farmer on a wagon, who struggled to keep his ox quiet as the harriers darted to either side of him, only to have the following riders gallop past. When he glanced back over his shoulder, Simon saw a man barge into another as they both tried to take the same route, and one fell, arms widespread, into a hedge, his horse continuing on alone, stirrups flying and bouncing by its side as it struggled, wild-eyed, to keep its place among the others.

Now they were on the great plain of Heath Field near Brentor, and the conical rock that gave the village its name stood stark on their right, the church at its summit a comforting sight in the bleak surroundings. Still they thundered on, the harriers as silent and daunting as the Devil’s own wish hounds in their implacable purpose.

Baldwin could not help a smile of contentment as he felt the urgent desire of his Arab to overtake all others in this race. He had been formed for just such exercise, he felt. The hunt was the only way of life for a man, with the blood rushing as fast in the veins as the air past the ears, the thrill of the search for the quarry, and the skill of holding the mount under control all combining to make it a uniquely exciting experience.

Yet the end of the chase would be the capture of two men, he knew. And their capture might shortly after be followed by their death, hanging from the rope at the Abbot’s gibbet. The thoughts circled in his brain, the glorious, hectic delight of the charge; the ghastly end for the quarry.

There were so many lives bound up in this affair: those of Peter and Torre, Avice and Pietro, Antonio, Elias and Jordan. Lybbe was likely to hang for his past offences, and if Pietro was found guilty, as Luke’s evidence suggested, of killing Torre and possibly Peter as well, he would die too.

But Baldwin was niggled by something. There was a clue he had missed, something vital that would shed light on all that he had heard today.