The Abbot's Gibbet aktm-5

by Michael Jecks

“Could they chase men?”

  He chuckled. “They could chase an ant from its smell.”

  There was a commotion from the guests’ quarters, and when they turned to see the cause, they saw the lay brother coming toward them at a run. “Abbot, the servant is still here!”

  Seeing the berner shrug and start to make his way back to his beloved hounds, Baldwin called to him, “Master berner, bring ten couples here immediately, and a horse for yourself. We shall be hunting men.”

  Simon turned to the monk. “Where is he?”

  “In the guestroom.”

  “Good. Come on, Baldwin.”

  Guests could be placed in various parts of the Abbey depending upon their rank and importance. Those of lowly position would stay in the communal accommodation above the Great Gate itself, while the most important would stay in the Abbot’s own private rooms alongside his hall. For others, when this was already being used, there was the main guest block overlooking the river, and it was in this building that the Venetians had been placed. Simon walked up the stairs to the first floor, and only when he arrived at the door did it occur to him that the man inside might be desperate and dangerous. He was uncommonly glad to hear the steady steps of Baldwin and his man behind him as he reached for his sword and tested the hilt in his hand. He glanced at the knight, then opened the door in a rush and burst in, drawing his sword as he went. He fetched up against a wall, holding the weapon before him.

  “The sword is unnecessary, Simon,” he heard Baldwin murmur as the knight walked in.

  In the far corner of what was a broad and long room, he saw the servant Luke folding clothes and stowing them into a light cloth bag, suitable for dangling from a saddle. The man stared in astonishment, eyeing Simon as if doubting his sanity.

  “You are the servant of Antonio and Pietro da Cammino?” Baldwin asked, walking quietly toward the man. He nodded, which was a relief to the knight, who had feared that he might not speak English. “What is your name?”

  “Luke, sir.”

  “Good. Luke, do you know where they have gone?”

  “No, sir,” Luke said, his gaze still fixed upon Simon as the bailiff carefully felt for his scabbard and thrust his sword home. “They collected their things and went; I don’t know where.”

  “Did you help them pack?”

  “Yes, sir. After the shouting and everything at the gate, Pietro came straight up here, and told me to pack his things.”

  “How did he seem?” Baldwin asked.

  “Very upset, sir. Flustered and cross. He said I must prepare to leave immediately, and from his look I imagined something must have happened.”

  Simon shook his head. “They already have a good head start on us, let’s get going.”

  His friend shook his head and held up a hand. “Wait, Simon. Let’s not rush off before we have to. The hounds aren’t ready yet, and we don’t have a posse. Now, Luke, you say Pietro was flustered and angry. Did he give you any indication what had angered him?”

  “No, sir. He only said that he’d been a fool, and went out as soon as I’d started packing his things. Then he came back a little later with his father, and Antonio seemed depressed. He said nothing to me at all while he was here, just paced up and down the room.”

  The knight remained staring fixedly at the servant. “When you were in Bayonne, weren’t you attacked by a mob there?”

  Luke nodded. “Yes, it was fearsome, being chased like that. We had to leave almost immediately.”

  “Did you know Pietro saw Avice’s father today? He told Pietro to leave and never see his daughter again.”

  Simon interrupted, “Baldwin, is this really necessary?”

  “Pietro must have seen the girl at some point, or how would he know she would go with him?”

  “Fine, so the lad went to see her, and when she told him she’d be happy to go away with him, he came back here and prepared to leave. Can we get a move on now?”

  “But there was this crowd at the Abbey gates, Simon. Was that just a fortuitous coincidence? And the mob dispersed as soon as the Abbot spoke to them. Did Pietro and his father really feel so threatened that they had to leave immediately? If he knew Avice would go with him anyway, what was the hurry? He could surely have waited until dark and gone then.”

  “Baldwin, you’re quibbling over details, and all the time they’re getting further away. Come on, let’s be after them!”

  “Patience, Simon. Now, Luke, I do not believe that Antonio would have rushed off just because of a crowd making a noise. He would be safe in the Abbey here. Why would he agree to go in such a hurry? Enough hurry, for example, to leave you behind, Luke,” Baldwin finished imperturbably.

  Luke stared back. He knew he had to make the choice whether to protect his masters and hide their secrets, in which case he might be viewed with suspicion and possibly even accused with them, or discard them utterly and protect himself. He glanced quickly at the bailiff.

  Simon gave an exasperated groan and dropped onto a bench. “I assume you have some reason for wanting to wait? Maybe the lad was in a hurry to go because he had killed the monk, and now we know he abducted the girl…”

  “Simon, we know nothing of the sort! There is nothing to connect him to the murder of Peter, and we don’t even know that she wasn’t a willing accomplice in their departure. At this moment we know nothing about the matter.”

  “Sir, my master Antonio was accused by the girl’s father of being a fraud, of inventing a bogus scheme to steal from the Abbot.”

  “That made him suddenly run away?” Simon asked dubiously.

  “Sir, I refused to go with them. I’ll tell you all I know, but only if I can be exempted from blame for what they have done.”

  Baldwin nodded. “Speak!”

  “I first met Antonio and his son two years ago in France. They had lost their servant to a disease, and they were glad enough to have me instead.

  “Last year we went to Bayonne to the fair, staying in a small inn. At the time, I thought it was to find new stuffs to sell, for they had made a fortune out of selling a great stock of Toledo metalwork, but then I began to have doubts.”

  Simon was interested despite himself. The servant’s story was halting, but the bailiff could see that he was coming quickly to his point.

  “Antonio spent much time talking to the Abbot there, and whenever I overheard them, it was always about the same thing – how Antonio had a fleet and was looking for the best suppliers of goods to transport to Florence. It sounded strange to me, for I had never seen any evidence of a single ship, let alone a fleet.

  “Then one night Antonio came to me and instructed me to pack everything and prepare to leave. I thought he had lost interest in the Abbot and wanted to avoid his bill for stabling and food, so I did as I was told, but when I heard Antonio talking to his son, he was scornful and contemptuous. I had no idea why; I just did as I was told. When all was packed, Antonio himself led the way to the stables, and I found that a pony had been laden with other stuff, but I thought it was just the things that Antonio had bought from the fair. It never occurred to me… Well, I’ll come to that.

  “We walked the horses from the stables behind our inn, and once we were outside the town, rode off. Some twenty or so miles farther on, there was another inn, and we rested there for a morning before setting off again, but before we had gone far, there was a sound of charging horses behind us, and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw a knight and others racing along. Antonio saw them at the same time, and cried to us to whip up.

  “I didn’t know what was going on, but if they were after us, whether they were outlaws or lawful posse, I didn’t care: I didn’t want to be caught by so many warlike men miles from anywhere. Just like the others, I clapped spurs to my mount and tried to escape. But the pony was a heavy burden. Its load was too heavy for it to hurry, and the men were gaining on us. I tried whipping it, but although I cut its hide in many places, it couldn’t keep up. In the end I let it go.”

&n
bsp; “And?”

  Baldwin’s voice was quiet, but it shattered the silence like a mace hitting glass. The servant looked up again. “Sir, when Antonio saw what I had done, he was in a towering rage. He said, ‘What was the point of stealing all that pewter if you’re going to let them take it all back?’ I was horrified: I’d had no idea he was stealing it. Maybe there are some things I’ve done in my life I’m not proud of, but I’m no thief, and the thought of robbing so many, and all under the Abbot’s guarantee… It was like stealing from the Abbot himself.

  “We carried on, and Antonio managed to trade a few items and keep us from starving, and I had thought when we came here to Tavistock, it was so that he could start to rebuild his business. When he came in this morning, just like he had in Bayonne, I realized he was doing something wrong again, and I decided to leave them. If they want a hemp necklace, they’re welcome. I don’t!”

  “And,” Baldwin prompted, “what else? Come, we know so much already.”

  Edgar was standing at the door, and through it he could see the hounds milling in the court. Men were arriving; the mounted watchmen placed around the fair to protect travellers had been called to form the posse. He considered telling his master, but seeing Baldwin’s concentration, he remained silent.

  “Sir, Pietro met this girl, Avice, and fell in love with her – and, I think, she with him. He arranged to meet her in the tavern, so that he and she could allow their fathers to talk and discuss business, with the hope that both would find the other amenable to their marriage, but to Pietro’s disgust, his father insisted that we should leave. Sir, while we were in Bayonne, there was a merchant we saw several times. He was in the tavern that night too. When Antonio saw him, he rushed out, almost knocking down a man coming in, and Pietro all but drew his dagger to strike the man down; it was only me holding his arm that stopped him. Outside, Antonio told us that he’d seen the merchant from Bayonne. Pietro hadn’t, but Antonio was absolutely certain, and he told us to avoid the tavern in future so that we could not be recognized. Then he and I returned to the Abbey.”

  “And Pietro?”

  “He remained: he said he wanted to wait for his girl and parents, hoping he would be able to talk to her or persuade them to go to another tavern.”

  “So it was him,” Simon breathed.

  Baldwin scratched his chin reflectively. “What else?”

  Luke was committed now. He closed his eyes briefly, then held Baldwin’s steadily as he completed his story. “Sir, this morning Pietro was in a rage about a monk who had been ‘pestering,’ as he called it, his woman. He went out to see her, and when he came back, like I say, he was pale and anxious. I didn’t want to question him – I know what he’s capable of. He can have an evil temper. Now I hear the monk’s dead.”

  “And you have formed your own conclusion, obviously,” Baldwin said, and stood. “Very well, Edgar, I can hear them; there’s no need to wave like that. Luke, you will remain here until we return. Come along, Simon, what are you waiting for? We have men to catch.”

  In the court they found the Abbot talking to the berner with men cursing and swearing at the hounds, which slavered and slobbered at the horses’ hooves. Abbot Champeaux himself seemed unaware of the mayhem, and Baldwin assumed that he was so used to hunting and the din created by his harriers that this was an almost relaxing sound to him. The knight asked the Abbot to see to it that Luke was held, then prepared to mount his horse.

  The knight was pleased to note, as he swung his leg over the back of his Arab mare, that the hounds all appeared to be from good stock. They were of a good tan color, and larger than his own, with wide nostrils set in long muzzles, and all had powerful chests with strong shoulders and hips that pointed not only to their being able to maintain a steady speed, but also to their ability to bring down heavy game. Baldwin did not miss the heavy hunting collars, all of thick engraved leather, that the Abbot had invested in for his pack. The collars were not overly ostentatious, they weren’t studded with silver or even iron, but the knight could see that they were expensive, and the sight made him give a grin. The Abbot was proud of his harriers.

  Baldwin hoped that his pride would today be justified.

  “You will send these to the Abbey for us,” Margaret stated, preferring to assume the man’s compliance than offer him an opportunity to refuse. Miserably, he nodded. He had already been forced to bargain away more than he had intended, and it was worth agreeing just to dispose of the harpy.

  Jeanne kept a straight face as Margaret sternly instructed the man, but as soon as they had gone a little way along the alley, she began to giggle. “The poor devil was glad to see the back of you.”

  “I’d have been worried if he wasn’t,” said Margaret complacently. “That could only mean he thought he had the better of the deal, and I wouldn’t want him to make too much profit from me. I haven’t been too hard on him – he was happy enough to agree to my conditions in the end.”

  “Of course, my lady,” Jeanne said, giving her a mock curtsey. “He should be grateful that you deigned to visit his stall, let alone graced him with your business.”

  “The cloth will suit my sideboard.”

  “Yes, and the other will look good on you,” Jeanne said.

  Margaret laughed. She had convinced the man that dealing with the bailiff of Lydford’s wife was potentially good for his business, and he had initially scrambled to show her the choicest materials he had, but his enthusiasm for the talk had waned when he realized that her aim was to win the best cloth for the price of the cheapest. “It’s not my fault,” she said. “I was raised as a farmer’s daughter, and we were taught to bargain and save as much money as we could. My mother would have been horrified to see me throwing away good money just because I couldn’t be bothered to haggle a bit.”

  “If she was like my uncle’s wife in Burgundy, she’d be just as shocked to see you spending so much on a few choice materials.”

  Margaret ignored the tone of mild reproof, her interest fired by the comment. “Your aunt and uncle raised you?”

  “Yes, after my parents died, they took me with them.”

  “It must have been a great adventure to go so far,” Margaret said, with a trace of jealousy. The furthest she had travelled was to Tiverton.

  “Not for a girl of only three years. I had no idea what my home was like, I hardly remembered the house, and within a short space I had forgotten what my mother looked like.”

  “Surely not!”

  Jeanne glanced at her, hearing the note of disbelief. Too late she remembered that Margaret had a daughter, and gave an apologetic grimace. “I’m sure if I’d been a little older I would have been able to recall her face, but I was very young to lose both parents.”

  “Of course. But tell me, wasn’t your uncle sad to see you marry someone who lived so far from him? It must have been an awful wrench for you to have lost two families when you married.”

  Jeanne surveyed a stall of hats. “Not really, no. Having lost my parents, I did not much mind losing an uncle. And he didn’t miss me. As far as he was concerned, I was a constant drain on his purse, and little more. It can only have been a relief to him when I left. He’d invested a lot of money making sure I was well turned out, and primed in etiquette and the proper manners for my station in life. When I was snapped up by Ralph de Liddinstone, I think uncle saw that as proof of success in some way: he’d got rid of an expensive member of his household. It was the same as if he’d sold off one of his more useless serfs to a buyer for a reasonable sum.”

  There was a note of sadness, of accepting a miserable position with equanimity, and Margaret suddenly felt she had an insight into the woman’s life. Margaret had always been loved, from the day she was born by her parents, and latterly by the man she had wed and their daughter; Jeanne had never known such all-devouring love. She had been unwanted as a child, but her uncle had accepted her when she was thrust upon him, and when he could, he had disposed of her as quickly as possible, to a
man who apparently had not loved her, but had instead treated her like any other possession, something to be thrashed when recalcitrant.

  It made Margaret push her arm through the other’s in a sympathetic gesture, and though Jeanne looked quite surprised, she was obviously grateful as well.

  They were still linked arm-in-arm when they came across a small group of actors in a miracle play, and both stopped as if by mutual agreement to watch.

  The story was so badly acted that Margaret was not sure what it was about. At one point she felt that it might be about the Last Judgment, but it was hard to be sure, partly because she had never been educated, but also because she found her attention wandering during sermons – that was when her daughter began to lose interest in proceedings, searching around for something to do, and she made it hard to concentrate.

  Jeanne was unimpressed by the play, but someone in the crowd caught her attention.

  It was a man, probably only in his early twenties, who stood with his son at the edge of the audience. All the time the actors were speaking their lines, he pointed to them, explaining what was happening, and when his son complained of not being able to see enough, he caught the child up and sat him on his shoulders.

  Unbidden, the thought came to her mind that Baldwin would be as gentle and kindly if he were a father. It made her give a quick smile.

  There was no point in giving the harriers a scent of Antonio’s or Pietro’s clothing; they would be on horseback, and the chance of a hound catching a whiff of the men was remote. Instead, the dogs were given an old saddle-blanket from Antonio’s stable – one which had been worn by his horse. The berner was dubious, thinking that his harriers might confuse the beast with another horse, but it was the best they could do. When the hounds had all snuffed the blanket, the berner shouldered a large leather bag and mounted. The hunt moved off into the street.

  The traffic had been so great that the hounds could not discern the trail, and Simon glanced at Baldwin. “If they went to the moor we’ll have time to find them later. I would suggest either the road to Brentor or the coast. Surely they would try to escape by one of those routes?”