Simon glanced up at Thomas. The Master of Throwleigh gripped his switch tightly and took a short step forward. ‘You dare to try to implicate me? By God’s blood, I’ll see you flayed for this!’
Baldwin took hold of his arm, remonstrating gently. ‘There’s little point in asking questions if you’re going to thrash him when he gives you an answer. All right, Edmund – why did you decide to pass by the manor?’
Edmund looked exhausted. ‘I told you the truth before, Sir Baldwin. I found a small cony, and wasn’t going to leave it to the rooks, so I picked it up, but when I came to the fork, I saw Master Thomas on the road to Throwleigh, and thought I’d better not go past him; he might realise I had something with me.’
Thomas gave him a filthy look and spat at his foot. ‘Liar!’
Simon and Baldwin ignored him. There was a silence for some moments, and then Thomas threw out his hand passionately. ‘Look at him! I ask you! What would I have been doing down there, eh?’ Emboldened by his own rhetoric, Thomas spun round to face Edmund. ‘Well? What was I doing, then?’
Edmund sighed, and glanced hopelessly up at the grille in the window far above, paying no heed to Thomas, who hurled his crop away from him and began pacing up and down.
It was not the first time Baldwin had seen such a look on a man’s face: it showed complete despair, the realisation that whatever Edmund might attempt, he was already doomed. That look of complete submission to fate was commonplace on the faces of men and women whom Baldwin had been forced to accuse in the past, especially when a Coroner was present and the court could demand the highest penalty; that of death. It invariably meant that the prisoner knew that the forces of authority had already decreed his end. Baldwin knew that he must remove Thomas if they were to discover more.
‘You want food?’ he asked, and when Edmund gave a surly shrug, he called Wat inside. Wat passed the tray to the prisoner, and then glanced at the knight.
Simon could have sworn that as Wat met his master’s eye, Baldwin gave a fleeting wink. Wat nodded, and hurried from the room while Baldwin leaned both elbows on his knees and surveyed the farmer.
For his part, Edmund lifted the jug of ale and sniffed at the contents, then prodded his bread and dipped a finger into the bowl of pottage – but nothing excited his appetite.
‘If you don’t want to eat, put the tray aside,’ Thomas snarled, and was about to kick it away when there came a loud shout from outside. ‘What’s that?’
Baldwin cocked an ear, an expression of vague surprise on his face. ‘It sounds as if someone is calling for you, Thomas. It’s all right – you go and we’ll remain for a little longer.’
‘I’m staying right here.’
Simon grinned broadly, but there was steel in his voice. ‘Why’s that, Master Thomas? Don’t you trust us alone with your prisoner? I shouldn’t worry – I am Bailiff for the Stannaries, after all.’
Thomas considered him irresolutely before glancing at Baldwin; he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he loathed all knights. That damned Fleming had dared to stand against him and continued to pay court to Lady Katharine, and now Sir Baldwin was forcing him away so that Edmund could be questioned without him. This conjecture was reinforced by Thomas’s certainty that the voice calling so loudly for him was that of Edgar, Baldwin’s servant. ‘Of course I trust you, Bailiff,’ he growled untruthfully. ‘But I’m not happy that a serf of mine should be interrogated in my absence.’
‘I assure you I will not harm him,’ Baldwin said, in a tone that made Thomas blanch with anger.
Meanwhile Simon had crossed his arms and leaned against the wall well within Thomas’s field of vision. He was not close enough for Thomas to consider him threatening, but he was closer than was necessary, or strictly polite.
The knight sighed and held up both hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘Do you wish us to leave our questioning and follow you? We may be able to discover something here which could have some bearing on the murder of your nephew, but if you really insist…’
‘No… no, you remain here,’ Thomas said, his manners returning at last. Casting a last suspicious glance at Simon, he walked from the room.
Instantly Baldwin was on his feet. He took the tray from the farmer’s lap and passed it to Simon. ‘Now listen very carefully, Edmund,’ he said urgently. ‘You are to be accused of murdering Master Herbert – you understand me? If that happens, you will be tried as a felon, and will almost certainly be found guilty. You comprehend your problem? You are a villein under the court of the Master of Throwleigh…’
‘I’m no villein, I’m a free man,’ Edmund declared, and there was real anger in his eyes, undimmed by fear of retribution.
It was true, he thought. He was a free man, with a certificate to prove it. His mistress might try to assert that she owned his body, but his father had been given that crucial document by her husband – what right did she have to rescind it?
The response was enough to satisfy Baldwin, and he slapped the farmer’s shoulder. ‘Then behave like one! Now – did you see Thomas on the road that day?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was he doing?’
‘He was searching for something – I don’t know what.’
‘Was he on his horse?’
‘No, his mare was held by that man of his. Thomas was on his feet, prodding and poking with a stick in among the ferns and furze.’
Baldwin nodded. ‘So you took this road, up past the manor?’
‘Yes. I didn’t want to meet up with that fat bastard again. He’s never liked me, and I didn’t fancy any more of his insults.’
Daniel stirred himself at last. ‘Edmund, you be careful what you…’
‘Be quiet, Steward!’ Baldwin thundered. ‘Hold your tongue or leave this room. I’ll not have you prejudicing this man’s evidence! Now, Edmund, Thomas wasn’t yet your master, was he? You thought that your Lady Katharine was still the executor of Squire Roger’s will, and the legal guardian of Master Herbert, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, sir, but there were rumours.’ He leaned back, and his face took on a sneer. ‘Like how Master Thomas was keen to be the next squire, like he wasn’t happy to find that there was another one, Master Herbert, between him and his inheritance.’
Baldwin heard a gasp and swift intake of breath. Without turning, he knew from the expression on Daniel’s face that Thomas was back. He made no sign that he had heard anything, but instead held Edmund’s attention. The farmer looked back with a kind of arrogance. He had witnessed Thomas’s return, Baldwin realised, and had made his statement with the intention of denouncing his new master.
There was a new courage flashing in his features. Baldwin had heard that some of his comrades, brother Templars, had been the same: they had accepted the most appalling accusations for a period, but when still more hideous allegations were added, they were finally stirred into defiance. Even the most broken, tortured men preferred to declare the truth; those who could have saved themselves by simply pronouncing one single lie chose to damn their tormentors instead.
‘Did he see you?’
‘Yes, Sir Baldwin. Both did. They looked up as I came near. I saw Master Thomas recognise me. He just stood there, while I took the right-hand fork to avoid him. Never said anything, just watched me until the bend of the road took me out of his sight.’
‘What then?’
Edmund’s gaze dropped, and Baldwin knew instinctively that this was the core of his evidence.
‘I rode on for a few hundred yards, under the shade of the trees, and then came to the open moor again. I saw the other two men, the foreigners…’
‘He means van Relenghes and his guard,’ Daniel murmured.
‘… and they both stared at me like I was some sort of outlaw or something,’ Edmund continued bitterly. ‘I’d never seen them before. I was worried; they both looked warlike, and the way they kept their eyes on me, I thought they might attack… and then, well…’
‘The boy?’
/> ‘Yes, sir.’ His eyes dropped, and his voice fell as if the matter was too grave to be spoken of loudly. ‘I felt it more than anything. There was a crack, and the cart gave a sort of jump, and…’
Baldwin interrupted him. ‘You saw nothing in the road before you hit him?’
‘No, but I was looking over my shoulder. At those men.’
‘And you did not hear Master Herbert cry out?’
Edmund shook his head with conviction, and Baldwin tried to envisage the scene in his mind. Having been to the place, it was easier to picture how it might have happened. The farmer, nervous on seeing the brother of his dead lord, rode on quickly, only to find himself confronted with two intimidating strangers a long way from any help. Would it be any wonder that the farmer would keep his eye on them rather more than on the road ahead? The horse could see where the potholes were, and it would be better for Edmund to make sure he was not about to be attacked from behind and robbed. Especially as he was about to pass under that slight bank, Baldwin reminded himself. The bank, only three or so feet high, but standing just at the corner of that curve in the road…
‘When you had passed, was he on his face or his back?’ he asked.
‘His back, sir,’ whispered Edmund, closing his eyes at the memory. It was a sight he would never be able to forget. ‘He looked like my own lad, sir. I thought I’d killed Jordan.’ A tear trickled down his face.
The prone figure had been so like his own son, he had scarcely been able to move, so great was his feeling of dread. Then he’d stopped the horse, taken several deep breaths before clambering shakily down from the cart and walking the few paces to the still body. Only then did he recognise who it was.
‘I see,’ Baldwin said, but he looked puzzled. ‘To reiterate: you drove round the corner, out of sight of the two men, and over the child’s body. There was no sound of him calling out, so far as you heard – and you definitely found him lying on his back?’
‘That’s right, sir. As God is my witness.’
‘Did you run over his head?’ Simon asked.
Edmund shuddered. ‘His head? God’s teeth, no, sir! The wheel went over his chest. The mud showed that plain enough.’
‘Now, Edmund,’ Simon continued, ‘did you see anyone else on the moor that day?’
‘Yes, sir. There was a carter who passed me a while before I got to the fork in the road.’
‘That’d be the fishmonger?’ Simon asked, glancing back at Daniel. And when the steward shrugged: ‘Thomas, send someone to find this itinerant fish-seller and bring him to us as soon as possible.’
‘I also saw Petronilla up on the hillside above the stream just before I saw the two men,’ Edmund recalled, his face screwed up with concentration.
‘The maid?’ Simon asked. ‘What would she have been doing up there?’
Daniel grunted. ‘She often goes up that way to fetch eggs from the ducks. There are several up towards the big pool, and her mistress likes fresh duck-eggs sometimes.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘No,’ lied Edmund stoutly.
‘The very first question that’ll occur to everyone will be, “So why didn’t you immediately go to the manor and fetch help”?’ Baldwin asked.
Edmund gave him a strange look, as if doubting the grave, dark-featured knight’s intelligence. ‘Why, sir? Because the manor knows me only too well, and I’d just been told I was to become a villein again. Would you have gone running back to a place where they’d be as likely to string you up as thank you?’
‘Why should they?’ Baldwin asked quietly.
‘Because they’d think I’d run down the boy on purpose, of course! Wouldn’t you?’
Baldwin considered him, head on one side. ‘No, I wouldn’t. You’re a fool often enough, you brag about things when you’re drunk, I have no doubt, and I can tell that you beat your wife, but as to killing a child for revenge – I doubt it. Especially since… How old is your horse?’
‘Eh?’ The man’s face registered his surprise at the sudden question. ‘Fifteen, I suppose, but so what?’
‘How fast can he haul your cart?’
‘I don’t know, he gets me from Oakhampton fast enough.’
‘Could he overtake a running dog?’
‘Well, not with the cart, of course…’
‘Could he overtake a running boy?’
Thomas thrust himself past Simon and went to stand between Baldwin and the prisoner. ‘What in God’s name has all this to do with anything? Are you making fun of my hospitality, Sir Knight?’
‘Out of my way, Thomas!’ Baldwin roared. Thomas blenched and fell back before the knight’s enraged glare. Baldwin stood, glowering.
‘You know perfectly well that this poor fool had nothing to do with the death of your nephew; he couldn’t have run down a child on a cart pulled by a broken-down nag. This whole affair is a farce, and you have contrived to have an innocent man arrested – someone who couldn’t possibly defend himself. You selected him carefully, didn’t you?’
‘He might have run over Herbert without the boy seeing him,’ Thomas said.
Simon had no idea what the two men were talking about, but two factors weighed heavily with him: he had faith in Baldwin’s judgement, and Thomas was showing signs of extreme anxiety.
‘You know as well as I do that that’s rubbish,’ Baldwin said sharply. ‘A lad lying on his back, and you suggest that he couldn’t see what was coming towards him? Or perhaps you believe that he wished to remain there, and wanted to be run down?’
‘Perhaps he was unconscious?’ Thomas suggested with a slight frown, as if putting forward a novel new concept.
‘Yes, and perhaps he was lying there because someone else had already killed him, eh? Master Thomas, you had your horse with you that afternoon, I believe?’
‘Do you dare to suggest that…’
‘I suggest you should exercise your brain as to how to release this man without leaving a smear of any sort on his character – and at the earliest possible moment,’ said Baldwin, and glanced towards the baffled farmer. ‘Edmund, you said the body reminded you of your son. Why was that? Was the boy wearing clothing like young Jordan’s?’
The shaken farmer took a moment to consider the question. ‘No, sir, it’s only that my lad often used to play with Master Herbert. The last time I saw Squire Roger was when he came to complain about my son playing with Master Herbert in the orchard, I remembered Jordan saying he was going to play up at the manor, and automatically thought to myself that it must be him. That was all.’
‘Well, all I can say is, I think you ran over a dead boy, farmer. Herbert was dead long before you hit him.’
‘He might have been alive,’ Thomas protested.
‘If he was alive, he was unconscious and unaware of the cart heading towards him, which means the farmer was not responsible. The man who knocked the child down in the first place was responsible. Wasn’t he?’
Chapter Twenty
‘This is becoming more confusing, not less,’ fretted Simon as they walked into the bright sunlight again. ‘How did you get Edgar to call for Thomas like that?’
‘Oh, I had a little word with Wat before we went in. I knew we’d get nothing out of Edmund with Thomas throwing his weight about.’
Simon nodded, and sat on a bench by the hall’s door. ‘I wish to God this was only a simple accident as we first thought,’ he sighed.
‘So do I. We know that Thomas, the man who stood to gain most by Herbert’s death, was in the area when the child was murdered. I have no affection for that poor, stupid farmer, but I think we can allow him the benefit of the doubt. If he lied, Thomas would have corrected him, but he didn’t, which tends to make me believe Edmund’s story.’
‘So the child was already unconscious when he was run over,’ Simon murmured.
‘Alas, I fear that Herbert was in fact dead before Edmund ran over his body,’ Baldwin said gravely. I am very suspicious of the head wounds found on the corpse. The bone
s at the back of his skull were shattered, which was surely not done by accident.‘
‘Someone wanted to make sure of the boy’s death, I suppose.’
‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin said slowly. ‘Someone who wanted to kill and then cover up the evidence – by making it look like an accident. That was why Herbert was placed on the road. I am certain that whoever killed the boy did it up on the hill, and then dragged the body down to the road. It is possible that his attacker was a man with only one shoe, who may have had an accomplice – a woman. And now we find that Thomas and his man were both in the area, as were the Fleming and his man. And Edmund said he saw Petronilla. We know the murderer or murderers didn’t go back up the hill towards the moors, because we couldn’t find any tracks. That may mean that they simply walked home along the road – which suggests they came from the hall itself.’
‘That’s the most sensible conclusion,’ Simon said thoughtfully.
‘And yet any guest wearing only one shoe would be remarked, would he not?’ Baldwin frowned. ‘Take Thomas as an example. If he came back here with one shoe only, people would comment.’
‘Perhaps he lost it but then found it again before returning home.’
‘You suggest that he lost it, chased up the hill, struck down the boy, dragged the body to the road, dumped it, then went all the way back to where he lost his shoe… A strange sequence of events!’
Simon had a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘But what about the sling in the mud, if it was Herbert’s!’ he exclaimed. ‘What do boys always do with slings?’
Baldwin gave him an appreciative smile. ‘They fire at any target they like – especially people they dislike – and especially if they feel secure from retaliation, as the son of a squire would.’
‘Herbert could have fired at Thomas or his horse; the horse bolted, and somehow the fellow lost his shoe. When he could, he took his horse back to the slope, found his attacker, struck out in rage, and realised too late that he’d killed him. He pulled the boy all the way back to the road, left him, and then had to go and find his shoe again.’ Simon nodded contentedly. ‘I think that covers all the facts.’
Squire Throwleigh’s Heir aktm-7 Page 18
