The Last Templar aktm-1

by Michael Jecks

  Shaking himself, he tried to force the idea out of his mind, but the awareness of the fear and despair that such poverty could cause would not leave him, and lowered his previously high spirits.

  The movement seemed to wake Baldwin from his reverie. Looking up, he appeared to notice his guest again, and with a start he rose, his voice decisive. “My people will not be harshly or unfairly treated. I will be fair to them all. I have travelled far and I have seen how many injustices there are in the world. I want to be seen and known to be a good master.”

  Simon finished his drink and stood. “I think you will be,” he said seriously. “And now, I think we must leave and finish our journey. By your leave.” He bowed and led the way to the door.

  The two shook hands briefly outside while Hugh went off to the stables to fetch their horses.

  “Thank you for the meal, Baldwin. I hope to see you again soon.”

  “It was my pleasure. There will always be wine and beer for the bailiff of Lydford at my house while I am here. Goodbye, and safe journey, my friend.” Just then Hugh returned and Baldwin stayed there, watching them mount and make their way down the track to the lane that led back to Cadbury and on to Sandford. When Simon turned at the bottom of the lane, the knight was still there, staring after them with that thoughtful frown still darkening his face.

  After their lunch Simon changed his mind and decided to go across country rather than follow the main road. It was more direct, and now, it being the middle of the afternoon, he was keen to get back to his own house and see his wife. Although Hugh was silent as he rode along beside him, he knew that his servant would be as keen as him to get back home again.

  He was also happy to be able to miss the monks. He had found the abbot’s fear deeply unsettling. It was normal, he knew, for a traveller to be wary, but the abbot almost seemed to be in mortal fear of his life. It was much more deep than the usual nervousness that a wanderer through a new land would feel, it was an almost tangible terror as if the abbot knew that he would soon he attacked, and the company of a man so obviously scared was not relaxing. He would be bound to demand Simon’s company for the rest of his journey again, too. No, it was easier to avoid the monks.

  As they left East Village and made their way down to their home in Sandford, following the tortuously winding lanes that led south and west, carrying them up and down the low and rolling green hills of the shire, Simon put the man out of his mind. For the most part he rode contentedly, with a smile of satisfaction on his face. Here, close to home, he knew all the lanes around, and it was with a thrill of pleasure that he recognised trees and fields, as if he was seeing old friends again for the first time after a long absence. The wind was chill but not strong, cooling them as they rode and preventing them from becoming too hot, and the bailiff took delight in standing occasionally at the top of the small hills and staring at the views.

  It was always the same for him with this country. Even from the lower summits the views were good, showing the gently rolling land and the hamlets nestling under the hills. From the higher rounded and soft hills he could see for miles. To the southwest was Dartmoor, to the north Exmoor, and he peered in both directions, contrasting the blue-grey ruggedness of the southern hills ahead with the softer, more gentle contours of the sweeping moors behind. At last, though, they were riding down the track to their home, and here Simon forgot the views in his anticipation of his wife’s pleasure at the news of their new position.

  It was with relief that he climbed down from his horse and stretched his shoulders. Rubbing his rump, he walked over to help Hugh with the packs. Then the door burst open and his daughter Edith erupted, running out to greet him, laughing and screaming her delight. Grinning, he swiftly dropped his bags as she came close, snatched her up and kissed her, feeling the pride and joy of fatherhood at her exuberant welcome. He had just set the six-year-old on his shoulders when Margaret, his wife, appeared at the door.

  She stood quietly smiling as he walked over to her, a tall and handsome woman with a slim but strong body, and as he kissed her, holding her close, he smiled with the feeling of warmth and comfort she always gave him.

  Margaret was almost five years younger than him. He had first met her when he was visiting her father eight years before and he had known immediately that she would be his wife, although he had no idea why the thought had come into his head. At first he had been attracted to her serious smile, her slim, fair face and her long golden hair, so rare in the country around Crediton. Now, as he held her and she wrapped her arms around him, he marvelled again that she had agreed to marry him. When she tried to break the embrace, he held her, squeezing gently to hold her close, and smiling down into her blue eyes.

  “Welcome home, Simon,” she said, smiling softly up at him.

  “Hello, my love. How are you?”

  “Fine now that you’re home again. So how was the journey?”

  He laughed. “The journey was fine, but not as good as the meeting! You’re holding the new bailiff of Lydford.” As she gazed up at him with her eyes wide in her surprise, he suddenly grabbed her to him and laughed, bellowing his joy infectiously, squeezing her in his delight as his daughter clung to his hair.

  “Simon, Simon, let go,” his wife said at last. Free again, she stood, hands on hips, as she frowned at him in mock exasperation. “Don’t forget your daughter’s on your shoulders, you fool! So you’re the bailiff, are you? What does that mean? Will we have to give up the house? What will we do about the farm?”

  Still smiling, he caught his daughter and carefully, as if she was a fragile and precious object, which she was to him, he put her down in front of them, where she stood staring up at them both. “We can if we want, but I think we ought to rent it out. We can afford to while we live in the castle.”

  “So we’ll have to arrange for all our things to be moved to Lydford, then,” she said, with a small frown of concentration. She turned and went into the house, Simon following, and led the way through to the hall. Here, in their living room, she walked over to the trestle by the fire and sat, chin on her fist, gazing into the flames. Simon slowly wandered over to the wall to pick up another bench, which he carried round to the other side of the fire, so that he could sit and watch her.

  Margaret was deep in thought. She was wondering about Lydford and whether she would like the new responsibilities that were going to be imposed on her husband as inevitable adjuncts to his job. Looking up, she saw his gaze fixed on the fire, a small smirk of pride on his lips, and she sighed. She knew that she would not stand in his way – he was obviously delighted with his new position, so she would be too. But it would be difficult, she thought as she looked around the hall of their house, it would be hard to leave this place that had been their home since they married, the home where their daughter had been born, where they had known so many happy times.

  As if it was the first time, as if she had never really seen it before, she peered around their hall, her hall.

  The fire was in the centre, sitting on a bed of clay in the solid, packed earth of the floor. Rushes, fresh each month, were liberally spread all over. The high windows were open to the air, letting in thin streams of daylight. At night they would be covered by the tapestries in a vain attempt to exclude the cold gusts of winds that came across all the way from the coast. Tables, long and heavy, were against the walls with their benches underneath, all except for the one that they used each day, the long one that could seat the family and their four servants. That stayed out, close to the fire.

  Would she really miss the house that much? she wondered. It was only a house, after all, and a castle was surely an improvement. She thought of their solar, the little family room that lay hidden behind the tapestry at the far end of the hall, curtained off so that she and her husband could sleep away from the inquisitive gaze of the servants. Like the rest of their house, it was draughty and almost always cold. Surely the castle would be, at the very least, warmer than that!

  But what
about the new duties? That was the real trouble, she thought. Glancing up quickly, she saw a troubled frown on Simon’s face and knew that he was thinking the same. As bailiff and wife they would have to be available to any of the local people whenever they wanted help. There would be no privacy and little opportunity for rest. How well could their little family cope with that strain? And there was the town as well. Lydford was a stannary town, crucial to the tin trade. Tin meant money, and where there was money there were arguments.

  She sighed. This was more difficult than probably even her husband had realised. After her father had been killed two years ago while he was out riding with the posse, she had kept hidden her awful terror – that one day her man would die while out trying to uphold the law. It was so common – too common – for many outlaws were like small armies, like regiments on the march, taking what they could from the countryside and people. Now, as he went higher up the ladder, Simon would be more obvious as a target to any trail baston with a bow and arrow. Did she want him to take on this extra responsibility?

  With another sigh she knew that it was pointless to speculate. Her father had only been a farmer, a local man called to the posse. So Simon was a bailiff, so what? Maybe it meant he would soon be promoted again, taken away from the risks of laws and control. Would he be in any more danger than her father had been? She thoughtfully glanced around the room again, already beginning to estimate costs of removal and assessing what could be left behind.

  Simon watched her with a degree of trepidation as he followed her gaze around the room. He could easily sense her feelings, and he knew he would do anything to stop her being depressed – even if it meant his rejecting the position at Lydford. If she felt that she could not be happy at the castle, they would have to stay here, at their home. It could wreck his prospects, but he had decided, when he chose her for his wife, that she was the most important thing in his life. And any job could be no substitute for her happiness.

  So it was with absolute delight that he saw her eyes light on him again, with a calm acceptance. He knew without asking that she had chosen, that she had accepted.

  The next two days went by in a whirl as Margaret began organising the move and arranging for a wagon to help them take their belongings. Hugh was kept busy with the constant stream of visitors who arrived to offer their congratulations. The news had spread fast from the time that he and the bailiff had returned, apparently, and there seemed to be no end to the farmers and landowners who kept coming to pass on their best wishes.

  It always astonished Simon how quickly news could travel in such an empty area. The whole of Devonshire only contained a few thousand souls, and yet it seemed that no sooner had he been told than the whole of the county was aware. He even received a message from Walter Stapledon, the bishop of Exeter, expressing pleasure at his new position.

  But Simon soon began to fret at being kept indoors by the continuous flow of visitors. After having to travel, and now with these guests arriving at every spare minute of the day, he felt as if his life was not his own. Three times he had promised to play with his daughter, only to have to stop to see another man come to offer his congratulations, and she had made him swear that he would spend a whole uninterrupted day with her after the last cancellation. He complied, mainly to halt the inevitable flow of tears.

  He had not even been able to get time to go for a ride, and at last, on the third day after the announcement had become public knowledge, the day he was to ignore all visitors and stay at home with Edith, he saddled his horse early, before she rose, and went out for a ride to loosen his taut muscles and get a brief spell of freedom before honouring his promise.

  It was still early when he left, only a little after dawn, and he started out slowly, warming up his horse and himself before taking any serious exercise. They rode quietly up the hill behind his house, following the old tracks between the fields in the early morning chill. The night had brought more rain and he had to splash through puddles and small streams as he made his way along the narrow tracks that bordered the fields and woods. At the top of the hill he turned west and followed the ridge for a couple of miles until at last he was up on the tall spine of land that pointed towards the southern moors, a straight and easy canter. He paused a minute in anticipation, he and his horse standing still, with a slight glow lighting his face from their ride so far. Then, with a grin like a naughty boy, he peered round behind him to see that no one was watching, and whipped his horse into a gallop.

  They raced down the lane, the heavy horse pounding through the muddy water that lay all around, and splashing it liberally over both of them, both revelling in the sudden burst of energy and enjoying the sensation of rushing furiously, as quickly as possible over the rough track, feeling the cold wind tugging at their hair and snatching at Simon’s cloak as they went. They charged down, hammering over the lane like a knight and his mount rushing into battle, with no thought for anything but the pleasure of the race.

  At the far end of the road they slowed, Simon reining in gently to slow the great horse and stop the animal from over-tiring himself, and gradually eased into a comfortable walk. By the time they got to Coppiestone, a small village that lay hugging the edge of the moor and forest land of Dartmoor, the only evidence of their gallop was the broad grin of sheer pleasure on the bailiff’s face. They sedately clattered into the hamlet. It was an ancient vill lying some four miles out to the west of Crediton, at the fork in the road to Oakhampton where one arm led to the north and up to Barnstaple. But there were also several small lanes leading south, and he turned into one and wandered aimlessly for a few miles, his eyes fixed on the moors ahead.

  The local superstitions had always implied that the moors were unfriendly to people, and from here, looking up at them, he could understand why men should feel that – they seemed to be watching him as he rode. Certainly they were impressive, looming like great beasts on the horizon ahead, but they were without the aura of focused viciousness that he could sense in wolves and other wild animals. There was a malevolence there, he could sense that, but it was the uncaring, unfeeling cruelty of a vast being that feared nothing for smaller creatures. It seemed to him as he rode that the moors noted him as a man might an ant, and, like a man, they seemed to know they could crush him without noticing.

  Shuddering at the thought, he quickly turned off, away from the moors and to the east. He would go as far as Tedburn St Mary, then north and back home.

  Now, feeling more relaxed after burning off some of his frustration, and comfortable as he sat on his horse, he let his mind wander. At first his thoughts were only of the coming move and the change in his circumstances that it would bring, but then, as he swayed along from side to side on the back of his horse, he started to think about the people he had met on the road.

  He was interested in Sir Baldwin. The knight seemed so worldly, so experienced, that he was fascinating to a man like Simon who had never been more than a few days’ travel from Crediton. Simon longed to get him to talk about his travels, to discover where he had been, what he had seen, what battles he had fought in – because he obviously had fought in several. He had the arrogance and pride of a warrior; even though it seemed to be kept on a close rein and almost hidden, Simon had felt it. But there was a kindliness and humility about the knight as well that seemed oddly out of place in the bailiff’s experience. Knights were rarely humble or pious – and if they were it was usually a calculating godliness. It had more to do with ensuring salvation in the face of previous offences committed against God than with any desire to follow Christ’s teachings.

  At Tedburn St Mary he turned off to take the road back to Crediton, and a sudden similarity between this road and the one near Furnshill made his thoughts move to the party of monks. He was still thinking about the frightened abbot when he arrived back at his house.

  He was surprised to see a horse tethered at his door when he arrived. His eyebrows rose in vague interest as he took his horse into the stable before going to
see who it could be – no doubt it was only another visitor passing on his good wishes – and he had just removed the saddle and taken off the blanket underneath when Hugh came in and took over.

  “Man here to see you.”

  “Oh,” Simon glanced over his shoulder towards the house and shrugged disinterestedly. “Someone else asking how I am and when I go to Lydford?”

  “No, it’s a man from Blackway. Someone’s died over there last night.”

  Simon stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then balled the blanket and threw it at him as he ran for the house.

  Inside, a man leapt up as soon as he entered the hall. He had been sitting on a bench with his back to the door, obviously warming himself by the fire, and he knocked over a pot of ale when the bailiff strode in, letting out an audible groan in mortification – though whether at seeming clumsy or at the loss of the beer, Simon could not be sure.

  His visitor was a slender, almost effeminate youth with pale and thin features under a shock of thick, mousey-coloured hair. The face was almost hatchet-sharp, but without any hint of deviousness or weasel cunning – it was simply the kind of face created for a slim man who would never be a soldier; this was one who would not go away to fight, this man would spend his life in the rural safety of the priest’s house, probably never going more than fifteen miles from the town in his whole life. His face seemed to redden under the fixed gaze of the bailiff, not from fear but from his embarrassment at knocking the pot over, almost as if he expected to be shouted at, and Simon grinned at him to calm his obviously frayed nerves. When he smiled back, Simon was sure he recognised him – there was something about his thin, colourless mouth as it stretched tight across his face. Where had he seen that face before? Of course! He worked for Peter Clifford, the priest at Crediton. This was one of his stablemen, wasn’t it? Simon walked to the bench and indicated that the young man should be seated before sitting himself and considering the man again.