Squire Throwleigh’s Heir
( A Knights Templar Mystery - 7 )
Michael JECKS
It’s late spring in 1321 and as Sir Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King’s Peace, prepares for his wedding, he receives the news that one of his guests, Roger, Squire of Throwleigh, has just died.
Roger’s death is sad, though not entirely unexpected for a man of his age, and Sir Baldwin – together with his friend Bailiff Simon Puttock – travels to the funeral. The new master of Throwleigh is little Herbert: five years old, and isolated in his grief, for his distraught mother Katharine unfairly blames him for her husband’s death. At Lady Katharine’s visible rejection of her son, Baldwin feels deeply disturbed about the new heir’s apparent lack of protection. For having inherited a large estate and much wealth, the boy will undoubtedly have made dangerous enemies…
When Herbert is reported dead only a few days later, however, the evidence seems to show that the boy was accidentally run over by a horse and cart. But Baldwin nevertheless suspects foul play. And as he and Simon begin to investigate the facts, they are increasingly convinced that Herbert was murdered.
There is no doubt that there are many in Throwleigh who would have liked to see Herbert dead, but little do Baldwin and Simon realise that their investigation will lead them to the most sinister and shocking murderer they have yet encountered.
Michael Jecks
SQUIRE THROWLEIGH’S HEIR
1998
Author’s Note
Historical novels present some unique problems for the author. A plot may form with great clarity and precision in the author’s head – books often more or less write themselves once the characters have been fleshed out – but what sort of vocabulary should one use to tell a story, set like this one, in the 1300s?
English is an astonishingly rich language, with a fabulous bank of old or ancient words upon which an enterprising novelist can draw to add authenticity. By throwing in references to, for example, a ‘misericord’ – the dagger used by knights to put an enemy out of his misery, or a ‘falchion’ – a heavy-bladed, single-edged sword used by some men-at-arms, and by mentioning trailbastons and shavaldours, crucks and cob… one can delight those readers who enjoy discovering medieval terms.
And yet no one could write an entire story using the same vocabulary which was current in the 1300s.
English in those far-off days was a mixture of Latin, Norman French, German, Saxon, and even some Arabic – utterly incomprehensible to most of us in the late twentieth century. Any person doubting this should get hold of a copy of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in its original form, unedited and untranslated; I defy anyone to understand a single line.
Even apparently familiar words can fool the casual reader; our modern interpretation will often be completely different from that understood in centuries gone by. For an easy example, look at the word ‘nice’: its meaning has altered from ‘foolish’ or ‘stupid’, ‘extravagant in dress’, and ‘slothful’ in the 1300s, through ‘particular’ and ‘precise’ in the 1600s, to its present meaning of ‘agreeable’.
Many writers try to get around this problem by giving a spurious patina of authenticity to their work. They throw in the odd ‘Gadzooks’ in the hope that it will lull the reader into believing that they have researched their subject carefully. Reader, beware! ‘Gadzooks’, for example, was first recorded in the late 1600s, so would be completely out of place in one of my novels. Most people recognise words of this nature because they were used by Shakespeare, and link that later medieval period with earlier times, but people in England and their language changed massively between 1300 and 1500.
I have deliberately chosen to write my stories in the language of today, having made the simple assumption that if an English reader were to buy a copy of War and Peace by Tolstoy, or even The Three Musketeers by Dumas, he or she would expect the Russian and French texts to have been translated; likewise the work of Geoffrey Chaucer.
But there is another problem, of course. If one writes in the language of today, one may be tempted to use words that couldn’t have been in common parlance in the historical period in question. I recently received a letter of complaint on exactly that point: the lady was irritated that I had used words like ‘posse’ and ‘gang’, along with ‘thug’ and ‘lynch’. She said that these words were too modern for her taste and dragged her back from the 1300s to the present, distracting her from the main story.
It is a difficult charge to answer, because it shows precisely the double-sided problem confronting a writer of historical novels.
Take ‘posse’. Most people associate this word with cheap extras playing a band of grubby cowboys in a Hollywood Western; in reality, it is a very ancient word; ‘posse comitatus’ was a legal term defining a group of armed men or an armed force, and ‘posse’ was certainly in use in 1300; at the same time ‘gang’ was being used as a collective term for a group of things or people. Thus these two words were actually correct for the period, and the fact that they are still in use today is hardly my fault! In the case of ‘thug’ and ‘lynch’, ‘thug’ has been known in English only since the 1600s, and ‘lynch’ since the 1780s; if a writer were to exclude any words which have come into use over the last two hundred years – or, worse, four hundred – he or she would find it next to impossible to write anything!
Writing an historical novel is therefore fraught with dangers; one faces upsetting some folk by using archaic, incomprehensible terms, and alienating others by employing words which are simply too contemporary. All I can do is plead the best of intentions and try to steer a middle road in the hope that people will enjoy my books for what they are: lively medieval mysteries that spring from my own overheated imagination!
It is time now to apologise to those readers who expect to find an accurate local history within these pages. In Squire Throwleigh’s Heir I have shamefully misused north-eastern Dartmoor. There was no manor west of Throwleigh towards Shilstone to the best of my knowledge; its existence was invented by me for the benefit of the story.
Nor was there ever a Squire Roger with a son called Herbert. I am not aware of the existence of a real James van Relenghes, nor his guard Godfrey, Thomas of Exeter, Stephen of York, or of any of the other characters.
However, similar incidents to those portrayed in this novel did happen. Men and women who had been freed from their serfdom were sometimes appallingly badly treated, their status as freemen being denied by avaricious lords and ladies. For one real-life example of sheer greed, look to Countess Margaret of Norfolk, who challenged poor Alice Comyn, accusing her of not being a freewoman. Alice’s father had been made free by Earl Thomas, the Countess’s father, but the Countess found a loophole: Earl Thomas’s estate was under an entail such that the Earl couldn’t alienate property except during his lifetime. Thus, the Countess argued, Alice couldn’t be free. On the Earl’s death, Alice’s father’s rights to freedom were automatically revoked, as were those of all his children.
This was sharp practice of the worst kind, but it wasn’t the only example. Other cases abound.
In the same way, I have not invented ‘Conventionary Tenure’. This unpleasant form of tenancy came into existence during the early 1300s in the earldom of Cornwall, and appears to have been used around the western borders of Devon too. Under its terms, people could be thrown from the land they and their forefathers had held for decades simply because another person offered a higher rent. Fortunately, not all landlords took part in this.
One last word is important, I feel. In this novel, I have made some comments on the English martial arts. Some may doubt that there were expert English fighters because over the years we have
happily forgotten these predecessors of modern boxing.
However, although now it is considered wrong for people to learn to use weapons, and the police control all access to firearms for even target purposes, this is an extremely recent development. In previous decades the British have led the world in methods of self-defence because we have traditionally believed in the right to ‘keep and bear arms’ to protect ourselves from foreign invasion or against overbearing governments in London. In both world wars this century, it was the rifle and pistol shooters of Great Britain who were first to join the Army. The proof of this lies in the archives of clubs such as my own; over half its members were wiped out during one day on the Somme.
Throughout Britain’s long history, skills and techniques have been passed down that have enabled our fighting men to win battles all over the world. For instance, our sailors were still learning sword-fighting with sabres up until very recent times – skills which were recorded before the Conquest.
For those who wish to learn more about ancient English fighting techniques, I heartily recommend Terry Brown’s English Martial Arts, published by Anglo-Saxon Books. This fascinating book tracks the development of the ‘Master of Defence’ through history, and because Terry himself is a modern martial-arts expert, he can bring to life some of the methods of fighting with broadsword, sword and buckler, sword and dagger, and especially quarter- and half-staff.
Even so, in Squire Throwleigh’s Heir the way in which fights are presented, the types of weapons used and the methods of using them, are all drawn from my imagination, and any errors are entirely my own responsibility.
Michael Jecks
Dartmoor
October 1998
Chapter One
If he’d known that this was the day he was going to die, Squire Roger of Throwleigh would have behaved more coolly, but lacking this prescience, he lost his temper instead.
It wasn’t his little son Herbert’s sullenness so much as his denial of any knowledge of the matter that made Roger’s blood boil. Playing with friends in the orchard was so petty an offence that the squire wouldn’t usually have bothered to get to the bottom of it, but he knew Herbert had been there – he had seen him! – and even as the squire bellowed for the boys to stop, he had seen his own lad turn, the fear transforming his face.
By then it was already too late. Had the squire’s horse been to hand, he might have been able to head them off before they could reach the concealment of the bushes, but his horse was in the yard with the rest of his hunting party, and so the miscreants had escaped, scurrying away through the long undergrowth and pelting for the riverbank.
When the squire demanded the identities of the culprits, it wasn’t with a view to exacting punishment. He was a sporting man, and knew that he should long ago have secured this gap in the hedge. The hole would have to be plugged, and for now he had only a casual interest in which of the vill’s youngsters had dared trespass on his land.
‘I don’t know.‘
At first the squire had been amused. The response was the instinctive answer of a small child to an enquiry by Authority, and Roger had almost been inclined to shrug it off, but when he followed up his query by promising not to mete out retribution, he became irritated by Herbert’s refusal to cooperate. It was honourable of him to try to protect his friends, but his refusal to admit to any knowledge of the crime was plain foolish – and intolerable.
‘Do you mean to say you will not tell me who the others were?’ he thundered.
‘I don’t know them, sir,’ Master Herbert stated stoutly, his small round face pale, his eyes downcast in trepidation.
His father seized his arm. ‘Don’t lie to me! I saw you with them! I saw you there, shoving them out – do you think I’m blind and stupid? Now tell me who they were!’
The boy shook his head stubbornly, and his father felt the familiar tension in his chest, like a band tightening around his heart, ‘You deny you were with them?’ he grated, all patience flown. ‘Then I’ll tell you who they were: Jordan and Alan! That’s who you’re protecting, isn’t it?’
‘Father, please don’t have them punished… It was my idea, not Alan’s; and Jordan gets such a dreadful beating when his father is angry.’
The wan complexion and tone of near-desperation in the five-year-old’s voice almost made Squire Roger relent, but if he didn’t carry out his threat, his son might feel he would always back down in the face of a plea. ‘No. You lied. If you’d told me yourself who they were, I wouldn’t bother, but you lied to me. Now you’ll see what harvest your deceit yields. Brother Stephen!’
‘Father, please, I…’
The squire strode towards the house, pulling his son after him. He had crossed half the distance when the priest came hurrying.
‘Brother, my son has lied to me: you’ll thrash him to teach him never to do it again,’ said the squire curtly. The tall, thin priest took Master Herbert’s arm, nodded silently, and took the boy away.
Squire Roger watched his son being dragged from the court. The lad stared up at the priest with a look of sullen fear, and not for the first time the squire felt near-contempt for his boy. He’d been found in the wrong, and should accept his punishment, yet he always exhibited this feeble-spirited horror of any form of retribution.
He had no idea it was the last time he would ever see his son.
In Exeter, Godfrey of London finished the last of his hundred press-ups on his clenched fists and sprang lightly to his feet, breathing easily.
It was essential to keep fit, and Godfrey despaired of those clients who ignored this, the single most vital element of one’s training. All too often youngsters professing a desire to learn his skills would swear to follow his strict regime, but they’d then go feasting and whoring, indulging their gluttonous whims. Their bellies would grow flabby, they’d develop double or – God’s blood! – treble chins, and all the time they’d say they were obeying his orders. It was pathetic.
Godfrey was not sanguine about their prospects: they would suffer or die as a result of their shortsightedness. He was paid, and paid well, to teach them – and if they wished to learn he could instruct them in techniques which should, all things being equal, keep them alive. If they wanted him as their tutor without bothering to pick up anything from him, it was their loss. He got his money and that was all that mattered.
He walked to the rack and selected a pair of cudgels, a man of middle height, with a square face and grizzled hair. His arms were not heavily muscled, nor were his shoulders over-wide, but he had a loose, controlled way of walking which to another fighter would be enough warning. His features held the proof of his history: one long scar cut across his nose, under his left eye, and then down below his cheekbone; a second swept from temple to beneath his thinning scalp; a third followed the line of his right jawbone. But those who had inflicted these injuries had all paid in kind.
Hefting the clubs, he stood in the outside guard, his right hand forward, the club’s tip pointing up to protect his right flank, while holding the left one low to cover his belly. Slowly he began the measured sequence he rehearsed each morning. His right hand moved back to block an imaginary attack, his left advanced to parry a second; his right twisted and lunged forward for the opponent’s head. Retreating slowly, he twisted his torso to swing in hard with his left, then thrust with his right before reverting to the outside guard again.
As he swung them in his slow dance of defence, his mind wandered, and he reviewed the potential of his clients – especially his most recent, and strangest, Sir James van Relenghes.
It was common enough for Godfrey to be hired to show how different weapons could be used, but he was sure that in this case there was more to it than mere anxiety about felons. The mention of a single man’s name had made his client mad. Never before had Godfrey seen such powerful loathing on someone’s face.
They had been walking in the court before Exeter Cathedral, and had stood aside to allow a priest to pass. The fellow had
nodded politely to them in gratitude, but then, noticing another man ahead, about to duck into an alleyway, the cleric had called out, increasing his pace to overtake him, lifting his robe for greater speed: ‘Is that you, Master? Master Thomas Throwleigh!’
Van Relenghes started as if he recognised the name, and swore in a venomous undertone. He spoke in Flemish, but Godfrey had fought in the Low Countries and understood the hoarse-sounding, guttural language.
‘Damn you, Squire Roger of Throwleigh, damn you, your poxy brother Thomas, and all your line. May you all burn in hellfire for eternity!’
Squire Roger watched his son being dragged away with mixed feelings of guilt and irritation.
It was high time Herbert grew up. He was five, old enough to be sent to a household to learn the twin crafts of courtesy and war. A place for him had been confirmed at the home of Sir Reginald of Hatherleigh, and there, Squire Roger was sure, the lad would mature well. Sir Reginald was known to be a firm disciplinarian.
The squire strolled to his horse. His pack of harriers were ready, milling round the yard and making the horses whisk their tails irritably. His berner, the master of hounds, and his whipper-in were mounted and waiting. Squire Roger hesitated; when he’d seen the boys in the orchard he’d been about to set off hunting, yet now he must delay his sport to seek the culprits. It was frustrating: for a moment he was tempted to forget the whole thing.
His horse gave a skittish dance, and the squire bit back a curse, hauling the reins to cow the beast. The cause was his son’s shriek, coming from the chapel’s open shutters high overhead. In the court the cries were pitiable, each interspersed with the solid crack of a stiffened leather strap.
Squire Roger peered up indecisively. Herbert’s suffering appeared to make further retribution unnecessary. He’d almost decided to leave the matter and ride for the chase when he caught a glimpse of a figure hurrying towards him and gave an inward groan. It was his wife, and he knew the line she would take.
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