The Merchant’s Partner aktm-2

by Michael Jecks

  As they rode along to the lane leading to the Greencliff farm, Simon studied him. He wore a heavy-looking short sword by his side. There was a bow at his back and arrows in a quiver tied to the saddle over his blanket in front of him, where he could reach them quickly. Before the three groups divided, Baldwin, Simon and Tanner had held a quick conference to confirm the main plan. Whoever was to find what could be Greencliff’s trail was immediately to send a messenger back to Wefford so that he could guide others there. If Simon’s or Tanner’s teams found no sign of the youth, they were to carry on and join Baldwin’s, for it was in his direction that there were going to be the highest number of roads to search, and thus he had the greatest need of men.

  With the details agreed, they had separated and made their way to the areas allocated to them for searching.

  Baldwin knew, as he urged his horse into an easy lope, that his would almost certainly prove to be a wild goose chase, and reviewed the road ahead. This lane led to Greencliff Barton itself, then on up the hill to the Trevellyn house, and past it to the crossroads on the Tiverton road. Where would they go from there? Into Crediton itself? Or north-east to Tiverton? Or should they carry on west? Where would the boy have gone?

  In among the trees, Simon had an easier time. At the beginning of the line of trees he had called the hunter aside. “Mark Rush, I’ve heard of you, even if we haven’t met before.”

  His eyes were a very pale grey, as if the rain and snow he lived in had washed the colour from them. Set in the leathery, square face, it made him look as if the eyes were a reflection of his soul, which had been so worn with his outdoor life that it was weary now of continuing. But when the eyes fixed on the bailiff, he could see the glittering intelligence that lay behind.

  “Yes, Bailiff?” His tone expressed polite interest, bordering on indifference.

  “I have no idea where this boy has gone, or how to seek him. You do, you’re a hunter. You’re in charge: you can read his spoor if we find it, I won’t be able to.”

  The hunter nodded, then glanced ahead at the waiting men. “In that case, sir, we’ll come out of the woods again.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s hard going here. We’ll go another half mile down the road, then go into the trees there. If he went into the trees to lose someone following him and made a big curve, we could end up following it all the way back on ourselves. If we go in further down, we can see if he left the woods south of the village or whether he went on at all. If he didn’t leave them, we know he’s waiting for Tanner or the knight to find him.”

  “So if we enter further on, we stand a better chance of finding him if he’s there.”

  He nodded. Then, apparently taking Simon’s shrug to be acknowledgement of the transfer of authority, the hunter called the other two men to them and led the way down the road to the south, with Simon taking second position behind him.

  When Mark Rush stopped, it was some way past the last of the houses in the village. Here Simon knew that the woods were bordered by a grassed verge before the road, but now the grass was hidden by the layer of snow. The hunter appeared to be measuring, gazing back the way they had come for a moment, then, seemingly satisfied, he took his horse to the verge and on into the trees.

  Following, Simon was again taken with the sudden hush, the stillness that existed inside. It was as if the troop had entered an inn as strangers, causing a void where there had been noise. Here it was as though the trees were intelligent beings who were suddenly aware of the invaders, and who were stunned into uncomprehending dumbness. He almost wanted to apologise to the towering boughs that loomed overhead for their noisy presence.

  Smothering the feeling, he carried on, over the thin bracken and ferns that lay under the snow at the edge and into the woods. He was faintly surprised how thin the snow was even after only quite a short ride. Above the trees were leafless, and he could see through the apparently lifeless branches to the sky above, but still the ground had little more than a thin crust of snow, a mere few inches.

  On the floor he could see that several animals had passed by, their prints firm and clear on the white carpet: birds, animals running purposefully in a line – twice he saw the marks of deer, with the distinctive twin crescents of their hooves. All stood out distinctly on the thin surface, and when Simon saw the attentive gaze of the hunter, seeming to notice and catalogue them all in his mind, the bailiff relaxed. There was obviously no point in trying to see the tracks before Mark Rush. The man was clearly more than capable. Sighing, Simon lapsed into a private reverie.

  What was Margaret doing? Probably ordering Hugh to help her with her work! He must surely be fully recovered by now, and Margaret was good at getting him to work, using the right amount of acid and sweetness in her voice to persuade him. He smiled fondly. She always did know how to get her men to do what she wanted.

  That was the kind of woman Baldwin needed, he felt sure. One who could not just excite the senses, but one who would always keep him on his toes, one who could keep his interest going. Above all, one who was intelligent. Simon was sure that the knight would need a woman who could discuss matters with him, not a pretty ornament.

  The thought led him down a new and different track. What about Mrs. Trevellyn? She certainly seemed to have attracted Baldwin. Simon’s lips twitched in remembered humour at the way the knight had turned in his seat to gaze back at the house as they left the day before. Yes, he had been interested!

  And there was no denying her beauty, the bailiff reflected. Of course, he was more than happy with his own wife, but denying the beauty of another would be stupid and, in the light of his own devotion to Margaret, pointless. He could cheerfully confirm that he was happier with the warm and summery fair looks of his wife than he could be with the cool and wintry attraction of the brunette from France, with her calculating, green eyes, cold and deep as the sea. They were nothing like the merry, bright blue cornflower of his wife’s. But still, he could appreciate her slender and willowy figure, with the long legs and tiny waist. And her flat belly, below the rich, ripe splendour of her breast, promising warmth and comfort. Yes, there was much to admire there. But was she intelligent enough for his friend?

  Then suddenly the smile froze on his face as his thoughts carried on to the inevitable question: if she was clever enough, if she was capable, and if she had taken Greencliff as her lover, could she have persuaded him to kill her husband for her?

  Deep in his musings, Simon nearly rode into the stationary horse of the hunter in front. Looking up, he was surprised to see that the man wore an amused grin. Thinking his humour was at his absent-mindedness, the bailiff was about to snap a quick retort when he saw that Mark Rush was pointing down at the ground.

  “There he goes!”

  Staring down in complete surprise – for he had not truly expected this troop to find anything – Simon saw the footprints. As the other two riders approached, he and Rush dropped down and studied them, crouching by the side of the spoor.

  The hunter reached out with a tentative hand to softly trace the nearest print, then Simon saw his eyes narrow as he glanced back to their right, the direction where the man should have come from. Seemingly satisfied, he turned and gazed the opposite way, then ruminatively down at the prints once more.

  “Well?” asked Simon.

  Mark Rush sniffed hard, then snorted, hawked and spat. “This is too easy. He’s not trying to hide.” His brow wrinkled. “I wonder why not.”

  Shrugging, Simon gave a gesture of indifference. “What does it matter? We’ll find out when we’ve caught him.”

  “Yes,” said the hunter, then grunted as he rose, a knee clicking as he moved. “Right, well I suppose we’d better get on after him. These prints’re from yesterday from the look of them, they’re worn. See that?” He pointed at a small round hole beside the trail. Glancing at it, Simon saw it repeated beside the footprints. “That’s a walking stick. See how it hits the ground in time with his left foot, although he holds i
t in his right hand? He’s carrying a stick, so we’d better be careful. Don’t want him braining us.”

  They mounted, then sent one of the men back to the inn. Before he left, Simon looked up at the sky. “How long have we been in the woods, do you think, Rush?”

  Squinting at the sky, the hunter seemed to consider. “Maybe two, maybe three hours?”

  “I think so too. You!” This to the waiting messenger. “Get to the inn as quickly as you can, but then go on to Sir Baldwin – understand? Tell him too, and ask if he can send a couple more men, just in case we do have to fight to catch him.”

  “No need to worry about that, sir,” said Mark Rush, indicating his bow with a jerk of his thumb.

  “I’d prefer to take him alive, Rush. We’ll avoid any unnecessary violence.”

  “Yes. I’ll avoid unnecessary violence, but I’ll use any that is necessary,” he said meaningfully.

  The three rode on in file now. There was no real need for a hunter to follow this trail. If the man had wanted to leave an invitation his path could not have been more easy to detect. It straggled on, winding unnecessarily round shrubs and saplings, sometimes seeming to halt, both feet placed together, and then starting out afresh. Once or twice Simon felt sure that the man must have stumbled or tripped. At one point there was a definite mark where he had fallen, and the outline of his body remained, his hands making deep prints in the snow, looking strangely sad, as if they were all that remained of him.

  Simon shivered. It was curious, but he felt a kind of sympathy with this man, for no reason he could fathom. Perhaps it was merely empathy for the hunted creature? He had felt that once before, when, as a boy, he had watched a deer at bay, the hounds snapping at it, the animal’s eyes rolling in his terror, knowing that he was about to die. Then, when the huntsmen had egged on the dogs, and the deer had fallen, legs flailing uselessly, beneath the pack, Simon had felt the same sadness. It was not for the hunt itself, but for the inevitability of the end. For that buck it had been death at the teeth of the hounds. For Harold Greencliff it would be the slow strangling as he was hauled up the gibbet by the rope around his neck.

  With a shrug, he concentrated on the trail again. Had the boy given any compassion to the witch? Or to the man he murdered? The bailiff doubted it.

  It was getting close to dark when the man at the back of the troop called out, and Baldwin had been getting short-tempered long before that.

  Their ride had been slow and painstaking, searching carefully along the lane, with Edgar on one side and the knight on the other, both looking for tracks that could have been left by the farmer, but they found nothing. Baldwin had even insisted on going into the sheep’s pasture to see whether they could find a trail there leading into the woods, but the sheep had trampled the whole area and scraped at the surface to get at the grass underneath so effectively that there was nothing that the two men could find.

  Carrying on, they had slowly worked their way along the lane, up to the Trevellyn house and beyond, and Baldwin had managed to throw it only the most cursory of glances, preventing himself from staring and searching for the extraordinary beauty of Angelina Trevellyn. It was not purely his willpower that stopped him. It was the raised eyebrow and sardonic smile on Edgar’s face when he happened to catch the servant’s eye.

  As he turned back to the road ahead, he wore an expression of vague perplexity. The look from Edgar showed more clearly than any words just how obvious his interest in the woman was. Baldwin was no fool. If it was that obvious to Edgar, it would surely be as clear to others who knew him.

  His problem was, he did not know what his feelings were. Was it just sympathy for a woman recently widowed? He slumped in his saddle as he tried to analyse his emotions. Although there was a sense of lust, that was hardly enough to explain his desire to see her again. It was quite a poignant sensation, one that he had never experienced before. Was it normal to feel like this after such a brief introduction? Who could he speak to about it? Edgar?

  They had almost arrived at the end of the road, and Baldwin was debating which direction to take, when the call came. Stopping his troop, they waited, and soon saw the figure of Simon’s messenger.

  After hearing the message, Baldwin looked at the two men in his squad. “You two go back. Find Tanner and tell him he can call off his hunt, then go back with this man and join the bailiff and the hunter.”

  There was a little grumbling, but they finally agreed, and Edgar and the knight sat on their horses and watched as the three disappeared round the curve in the road. Then Baldwin sighed and flicked his reins, setting off at a slow walk, his servant behind.

  “Well?”

  Edgar grinned at the gruff word, and at the implied question. “Sir?”

  “What do you think?” Baldwin had stopped his horse and now sat frowning at Edgar with his brow wrinkled in perplexity. “Of Mrs. Trevellyn, I mean?”

  “Mrs. Trevellyn? A very beautiful lady. And very marriageable, I would think, with the money she must have. Her dowry would be high, I imagine.” He maintained a wooden and blank expression.

  “Yes, but should I…? Well, for a woman who’s husband’s just been killed? She’s hardly begun her mourning. Should I…?”

  “I’m sure if you catch her husband’s murderer she’ll be very pleased. And grateful, sir.”

  As Baldwin wheeled his horse and set off, his face purposeful once more, he could not contain his glee. That the capture of Alan Trevellyn’s killer would delight her had not occurred to him, and now he could tell her that they had found the trail. He squared his shoulders. He must go to her at once to tell her.

  Not having to search continually for tracks made their return along the road a great deal faster, although the snow was thick enough to ensure that they must exercise caution. They could not risk going so fast that their horses might slip on ice or on a hardened rut of frozen mud.

  At the turn-off to the house, they slowed and ascended the hill at a walk. It was strange, Baldwin thought, that from here, outside, there was no sign of the sadness that inevitably follows the death of the master. Smoke still issued cheerily from chimneys, there were sounds of shouting and woodcutting from behind the property, and if he did not know of the death, he would have thought that nothing had happened here.

  When they had dismounted and tied up their horses, Baldwin thumped on the door. It was soon opened by the same young maid who they had seen on the day before, but now, the knight noticed, she had undergone a transformation. Whereas before she had appeared timid and fearful, now she seemed gay as she opened the door, smiling as she recognised the men waiting, and he found himself grinning in return.

  She led them through to the hall again, where the fire blazed in enthusiastic welcome. Striding in, the knight and his man stood warming themselves by the fire while the maid left to go into the solar at the back of the dais. After a few moments, she returned, indicating that they should follow her, and they soon found themselves in a warm and comfortable family room with another roaring fire. Sitting on a bench nearby was Mrs. Trevellyn, sewing quietly at a tapestry, and she glanced up questioningly as the two men entered.

  At the sight of her cool green eyes, Baldwin felt the blood begin to thunder in his veins. She looked so soft and vulnerable, so warm and defenceless, he wanted to gather her up in his arms and gentle her. The feeling was so strong that he stood for a moment and stared, taking in her slim and languid dark beauty. It was impossible to suspect her of being involved in the murder of the old woman, let alone the killing of her own husband. He felt quite certain of that now. But when her eyes met his, he was sure that he could see a quick impatience, and at the sight he dropped into a chair, waving Edgar out to the hall. Her maid followed, so they were soon left alone.

  With a sigh she set her needlework aside and subjected him to a pensive, detailed study. “So, Sir Baldwin. You wanted to see me?” Her voice was low and calm.

  “Yes.” Now he was here, he realised that raising the death of her h
usband was going to be difficult. Mentioning Alan Trevellyn must recall to her the pain of seeing his twisted body out on the hill among the trees. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Mrs. Trevellyn, I know it must be very hard for you, but we have been fortunate in our search for your husband’s killer.”

  An eyebrow rose, and he was sure he could see a sceptical smile form. “Really? And how is this?”

  “After the death of Agatha Kyteler, we found some evidence that a local man might have been involved, and when we went to see him, he had disappeared. Harold Greencliff. We went to see him yesterday, but he has gone again. Run away. But we have found his trail, and…”

  Her eyes had widened, as if in great surprise, and a hand raised to her throat. “Harold?” Her voice quavered, suddenly weak.

  “It looks like he ran away almost immediately after the killing of your husband, lady. We have sent a search party after him. The men are following his tracks in the woods. My friend the bailiff is there, and he should soon bring the boy back to be tried for the murder. Lady? Are you all right?“

  She had dropped her face into her hands, as if about to weep, and the knight leaned forward a little, his hand held out tentatively, longing to touch her and try to calm her, but he let his hand fall. He dared not.

  After a minute or two, she cleared her throat and looked into the flames.

  “Lady? Can I fetch you anything?”

  Looking at her, he was struck by the fresh sadness in her eyes, and his heart went out to her for feeling sympathy for the young farmer, even if it was misplaced. But then her eyes returned to his, and he could plainly see the fear in their emerald depths. It was that which made him stiffen with a sudden cold doubt. This was not just womanly compassion for a hunted villein. She was scared for herself.