A Moorland Hanging aktm-3

by Michael Jecks

  Sir Ralph ignored him. Clearly the man was merely one of the tin workers, and thus of little importance. But then he heard the sudden hiss as the man-at-arms drew in his breath.

  “What is it?”

  “That man there. It’s Peter Bruther, the runaway from my master’s Manor.”

  “Is it?” Ralph looked back. He saw a man in his late twenties, thin and worn, dressed in a faded brown tunic and what looked like a shabby fustian cloak. Dark eyes held his, but not with suspicion or fear, merely with a kind of vague curiosity. After a minute, he shrugged and began scraping muck from the stream and tipping it into a leather bucket. Somehow Ralph felt let down. From what he had heard, this villein was the embodiment of evil, and yet the reality was rather pathetic. Making a quick decision, the knight smiled to himself. Spurring his horse on, he rode down the slope to where the man stood.

  Hearing their approach, Bruther straightened again and watched as they splashed through the stream, glancing behind him once as if expecting a sudden attack, then waiting patiently. Ralph smiled at the look. Even if he wanted to, there was nowhere for him to run to – and little point in trying to escape from men on horseback, the knight reasoned.

  “Are you Peter Bruther?”

  On hearing his words, Bruther straightened and stared up at him. “I am a miner.”

  Ralph felt his mouth twitch. It was pleasing that the man had a defiant spirit. “I assume that means you are, then. You are the runaway from Sir William Beauscyr’s estates.”

  “I used to be one of his men,” Bruther confessed with an air of calm; if he had been admitting to owning a sack of corn for sale he could not have been more casual.

  Studying him, Ralph was suddenly aware of a certain dry humor in his intelligent eyes. It was unsettling. As a knight, he was used to a range of expressions on the faces of peasants: usually anxiety and trepidation, often outright fear. Never before had he seen the open contempt which was now evident in the curl of the man’s lip and the raised eyebrow. Fury welled up in him. In a merchant or another freeman it would have been disrespectful. In a runaway, it was blatantly impudent. Ralph spurred his horse closer.

  “If there is something which amuses you, share it with me.”

  “Oh, no. Not until you have explained why you want to speak to me. You are the trespasser here, after all, not me.”

  “Trespasser!” The knight spat the word, astonished by the daring of this insignificant little man. Beside him, he heard the intake of breath from the man-at-arms.

  “Sir Ralph, I think we should return…”

  “No,” he interrupted, his eyes fixed on the slight figure before him. “I think we should take this man back with us. If for no other reason, his insolence deserves punishment. And it would be a good turn to Sir William for the hospitality he has shown me. After all, the Beauscyr family cannot be held responsible for me bringing the man back in error, can they? And I will soon be gone. Once he is back on the Manor’s land, he can be punished as a runaway. Tie him and give me the end of the rope – he can come back with us to the Manor and explain his amusement there. If he will not walk, we can drag him.”

  “Sir Ralph…”

  This time it was Peter Bruther who stopped the man-at-arms. “It’s Sir Ralph, is it? You know that I am a tinner – you see my tools here? You must know that I am responsible to the King now and am bound by stannary law, and yet you want to take me hostage?”

  Ralph smiled bleakly. “I know you are a runaway villein from Beauscyr and that is all that matters to me.” He turned. “I told you to tie him…”

  His voice faded at the sight which met his surprised gaze. Where before there had been an empty sweep of river bed, now there was a group of eight men. From the mattocks and shovels gripped in their grimy fists, they must be miners, and he realized too late that they must have been working further upstream, round the bend. There was no doubt in his mind, as he looked them over, that they were prepared to fight. Unconsciously, his hand fell to his sword, but at the movement he saw the point of a pick rise threateningly. He took his hand away, but kept it close. “Leave us alone,” he hissed.

  “But, you see, these men are my friends – other miners like me. I think you should leave, though. This land is stannary land. Our land. You have no rights here.” Bruther was almost at his horse’s head now, peering up at him. His voice took on a harsh, jeering tone. “Go on, sir knight. Leave us. Or do you prefer to try to take me back, like you threatened?”

  “You’ll regret this!” Ralph leaned low in his saddle and glared at Bruther, eyes wide in impotent fury. But there was nothing he could do. Viciously yanking the reins round, so that the metal bit cut into his mare’s mouth, he whipped and spurred her up the slope. Before Taverner could chase after him, Bruther snatched his pony’s bridle, and stood smiting up at the nervous man-at-arms. While his men laughed, the miner slipped the thong on his small coil of rope, then weighed it in his hands.

  “You tell your Sir Ralph that I’ll keep this,” he said mockingly, and chuckled. “Tell him he can come and get me whenever he wants. I shall always keep it handy. If he wants me, he can come and tie me up and take me back with him.” He slapped the pony’s rump and Ronald clattered off after the disappearing knight.

  But the man-at-arms had to travel a long way before the jeers and laughter of the men behind him had at last died away.

  Straightening up, Henry Smalhobbe groaned and rubbed at his back. The sun was low in the western sky, and as he winced at it, face screwed into a walnut of wrinkles, he could see it was late. He should return to his hut; it would be dark in another thirty minutes or so. In Bristol the hills and trees all round quickly blotted out the sun and its light, but here twilight crept slowly toward true night, the stars gradually flaring above like tiny diamonds.

  Shouldering his small leather sack of rocks, he hefted his shovel and pick and began to make his way homeward. The ground rose shallowly from the old river bed, and he had to climb the slope to the flat plain above, cutting straight across country to get to the hut and Sarah. It was a path he had trodden every day for some weeks now, and he knew it well. There were no dangerous marshlands, providing he walked carefully and kept the gray mass of Higher White Tor before him and Longaford Tor to his left, and the way was easy, being fairly level and grass-covered. There were few rocks.

  The stream chuckled merrily behind him as he clambered upward, and he soon missed the sound as he walked on. Apart from the birds, his only company during the day had been the trickling water. At this time most of the birds were nesting, and the moors were quiet. Only the soft whispering of the wind could be heard. It made him shoulder his pack and frown ahead. There were too many stories here of Crockern for any man to feel entirely comfortable as night thickened and the light fled to leave the moors to the spirits.

  But Henry Smalhobbe was not unduly superstitious, and he thrust all thoughts of the spirits of the moors to the back of his mind. He had learned to do that while still a small boy, leaving unproductive fears behind like so much unwanted baggage. There had been little which could upset the peaceful, even pace of his boyhood. Once he’d reached adulthood, most of his time had been spent in loyal service to his master, and the work had kept him too busy to have any terrors of ghosts or spirits. But that was before…

  Stopping, he rubbed at an eye with the heel of his hand. His eyelid kept twitching – a strange but irritating quirk which had developed over the last few months, and which occasionally preyed on his mind in case it was the precursor of blindness. That thought terrified him. To be blind was to be the target of abuse, or worse. There was no protection for a blind man unless he was wealthy, and Henry Smalhobbe was not rich. If he were to lose his sight, he knew what would happen. Other miners would take over his land; he and his wife would be driven from the moors. How could a blind man find work? Their only hope would be for Sarah to earn them a living, and there was only one way she could do that.

  He set his jaw and carried on. It was foo
lish to waste time worrying about such things. After all, there were many other dangers here on the moors. He could be bitten by a rabid animal or snake, fall into one of the bogs or catch leprosy. There were many ways to die horribly without exercising the imagination.

  As if on cue, a low howl shivered on the soft breeze and he glanced at the horizon. Wolves – but a long way off, from the sound. He strode a little faster.

  It was almost dark, and he was relieved to see the flickering light of the fire in his hut’s doorway. He and Sarah had built their small cottage with regular-sized stones from what appeared to be an old wall a few yards away, jamming pebbles and mud into the gaps to stop drafts, but they had only an old, thick fustian blanket to act as a door. It was little good in winter-time, but it served well enough now, in the warmth of summer. Sarah always left it open at night until he got home, to help him find his way.

  The ground was flat here, with a light scattering of moorstone. One or two bushes broke the soft undulations of the grassy plain before his door, but in the main the area was empty as far as the eye could see. While some way off, Henry stopped, frowning. Up ahead, between him and his hut, a bush appeared to have changed. When he had left that morning, it had been a thin straggling plant, but now it seemed larger, and more substantial.

  For a moment he felt as if his heart had stopped. All the terror of the moors struck him anew: he suddenly recalled the stories of the moorland spirits. The tales he had heard when sitting before the hearth of the inn with a quart of ale in his hand had seemed laughable then, but now, miles from anybody else, he felt defenseless. A gust of wind flicked the hair from his forehead, and in its light caress he felt the icy trickle of sweat. When the shadow-like figure slowly moved, the hairs at the back of Henry’s head rose like a dog’s hackles in a chilly spasm of fear.

  Whatever it was blocked his path. He could not get to his door without passing it; could not see how Sarah was. She must surely be inside, but he dared not call to her – not for his own sake, but from fear of what the thing might do to her.

  Then the fear disappeared as if blown away with the wind. The figure had coughed! Any creature which made such a mundane sound was only flesh and blood like himself. Gripping his mattock, he quietly placed his pack on the ground and crouched. Whoever it was seemed to want to remain hidden. The small explosion of sound had been stifled, as if smothered by a covering hand. It had only been the breeze, carrying the sound to him like a friendly spy, which had betrayed the man. Who he was and why he was here was a mystery, but one which Henry was keen to have answered. Carefully placing one foot in front of the other, he stalked his prey, circling widely to come upon the man from behind.

  The figure slowly resolved itself into that of a squatting man, resting easily with elbows on his knees. Clad in a dark cloak, he surveyed the land ahead, occasionally glancing behind him at the hut with a cautious deliberation. Henry felt the blood hammer at his ears. This was no casual moorman, this was clearly an ambush, and the miner felt a rising anger. This man was waiting for him. There was only one reason, as Henry knew, why anyone would want to attack him, and if he could surprise the stranger, he might be able to capture him and gain the upper hand.

  With infinite care, he crept toward the dark shape. Each time he saw the head begin to move he froze, holding his breath. Then, as it turned back to the path, Henry continued, his feet rising high and slow in a parody of normal motion before being carefully placed down, testing each step to make sure that it would make no sound. There were no twigs or dry leaves to betray his presence here. In a state of exquisite tension, his scalp tingling with his excitement, his hands locked like cast iron round the stave of his mattock, his mouth open to silence even his breathing, he painstakingly moved forward.

  But then it all went wrong.

  “Henry? Henry?”

  His wife’s call, betraying a slight anxiety, came clear on the night air from the doorway. She stood peering out into the gloom. It was only because he was late. Sarah had been waiting with his food ready since dusk, for he normally returned before full dark. Now it was quite black outside as she walked to the curtain and twitched it aside. Henry was never this late, she thought to herself, and she wondered whether he could have hurt himself, maybe falling into one of the bogs which proliferated in certain areas, or perhaps having an accident while digging. But that was ridiculous. He knew all the land around here, had walked over the whole area with her to make sure that it was safe. Her husband was a careful man, she knew, and unlikely to harm himself. But though not yet worried, she nonetheless felt a vague trepidation. It was unlike him to be so late, he loathed walking across the moors in the dark.

  Head thrust forward, she frowned out, staring. Up ahead there was a shadowy figure. She called, saw his face turn to her, yellow-white in the gloom, and scared, and then she saw the other form spin and rise, and the two men springing from beside the path. That was when she screamed.

  Setting off from the hall, Samuel Hankyn burped gently to himself, smiling under the relaxing influence of the strong ale in his belly. He was mildly interested in what had made his master send him home so early, for it was unlike Sir William to go on without a man-at-arms, especially since he was going to meet the man who, as all in the Manor knew, he considered to be his enemy.

  Samuel noted that Ronald Taverner, his companion, still wore his vague and faintly stupid expression; he gave a quick frown of exasperation. He should not have listened when Ronald suggested they should go for a drink before making their way home. After all, he had seen often enough before how little the lad could drink.

  Strange, though, he reflected again, that his master should have decided to dismiss his men at the miner’s door and enter alone. After the row that afternoon he would have expected Sir William to take a strong force with him, rather than just Sir Ralph, his son John and two men-at-arms – himself and young Ronald. A show of strength would have been more in keeping with a man of his standing, and since all the men in the fort knew of the argument which had led to Sir Robert rushing out in a rage, there was even more reason to make a strong showing before the miners. If they even suspected that they had sown dissension in the ranks of the Beauscyr family, the miners might decide to ask for more, or even to take the knight hostage against a large ransom. It had happened before.

  For now, though, Samuel just felt grateful at having escaped. If it came to a fight, he wanted to be far away. Knights were well-enough protected, for they had mail and armor to cover them, and if that failed and they were captured, few would kill them. Keeping them prisoner against a goodly charge for release was vastly more profitable. Not so for the poor man-at-arms. He was never wealthy, so could not afford much more than the legal minimum of arms – Samuel’s sword and helmet were paid for by Sir William – and was therefore not worth the keeping. If caught, a man-at-arms was lucky if his only punishment was a knife across the throat.

  Facing the road ahead, he frowned. That was the thing that niggled at him. Sir William must know that he was riding into danger in going to the miners’ camp, so why go there unprotected? It was madness. Surely Sir William was not going to give in – that was almost incredible.

  The facts spoke for themselves nonetheless. They had ridden out from Beauscyr to Thomas Smyth’s hall at the vill in the middle of the moors, and there Sir William had ordered the men-at-arms to leave him. When Samuel looked back, he saw John and Sir Ralph leaving the knight at the door and riding off on the Chagford road. They would not have left the old knight unless he knew himself to be safe, and that meant he must have been going to accept the miner’s terms – paying money to stop damage to the estate.

  Samuel and Ronald could have gone straight back to the Manor, but the whole place still felt as if there was a storm brewing after the afternoon’s argument, and so Ronald quickly persuaded Samuel to find an inn. Both men had seen John and Sir Ralph heading northeast on the Chagford road, and guessed they were going to the Fighting Cock. It was no secret that the tw
o often went to that tavern for their drinking and other entertainments, and Samuel and Ronald wanted to go somewhere else where they would not be under the amused and patronizing eyes of the squire, so they went off the other way, to the farmer’s hall where the Dart and the Cowsic Rivers met the road. Here, in the little valley, they were soon happily clutching pots of ale and forgetting their master and his troubles.

  Now, some hours later, it was getting dark and Samuel was in a hurry to return to the Manor. He had no wish to be out when night fell, he was too well aware of the tales, and he was fearful of the response of Lady Matillida if they should arrive late. In a small fort like Beauscyr she would be certain to hear about it. Others had endured her fury: he had no wish to.

  After leaving the stableyard they turned east. It wasn’t long before Samuel saw a pair of riders before them. He felt sure that they were miners, and cursed. Even a single quart of ale made Ronald useless in a fight, and today he had consumed three. Nervously, Samuel glanced south. He remembered this area, it was close to the River Dart, and the ground was often little better than a mire. On the other side of the road there was a path north. They could follow that for a mile, and then turn east on to the Lych way. It was hardly a direct route, but better than getting involved in an unequal fight. Cursing quietly, he spurred his mount to the trail.

  Ronald seemed unaware of any change in their direction. He jogged along happily after Samuel, his face beaming. Samuel muttered bitterly. With this detour, they would be travelling a good two miles out of their way. But there was no alternative – the two riders were at the end of the lane, staring after him suspiciously. Praying that they would not follow, Samuel led on.