In like fashion, Emma would not give up her oft-stated opinion that the animal was a vicious monster that should have been killed when still a pup, before he could upset anybody else. The only thing Baldwin had ever done, or rather not done, that had elevated him in her opinion was to decide not to replace Uther when the dog died.
However, his reluctance to speak for either side in the present political climate struck Emma as dishonourable.
‘That’s what it seems like to me, and I speak as I find. Can’t abide people who won’t stand by their lords. Look at him! He should declare his loyalties, either to the king or to the Lord de Courtenay. Where’s the difficulty in that?’
‘Enough, Emma! It is not your place to decide where his duty lies!’ Jeanne snapped at last.
‘No, my lady, but it’ll be his soon enough, when there is a fight down here, on our manor, or perhaps on his own up at Furnshill,’ Emma retorted. ‘He should state where his allegiance lies, that’s all I’m saying. Hoi! You! Where are you going with that?’ and she was off after a hapless peasant before Jeanne could reprimand her again.
The worst of it was not Emma’s blundering clumsiness in her language, nor the apparent pleasure she took in denigrating Baldwin, a man whom Jeanne was sure Emma had never liked, but more the disloyal feeling in Jeanne’s own breast that her husband really should have declared on which side his interests lay. There were so many men for whom life under the present rule was all but intolerable. The Despensers were notoriously and aggressively acquisitive. They could not see or hear of another man’s wealth without attempting to steal it.
No, Jeanne would hate to think that her Baldwin could join the king and the Despensers and fight for them. Only recently the Lord Mortimer had escaped from the Tower in London, and made his way overseas somehow, if the rumours were true. Baldwin had been told by another judge at the Court of Gaol Delivery that Mortimer was in French territory. His liberty had to be a massive concern for the Despensers because they knew Mortimer was the only one of their enemies left with extensive military experience. If he returned to Britain, Baldwin said, he could pose a threat to them, and maybe even the king himself.
‘Are you well?’ Baldwin asked.
She smiled at his solicitous tone. ‘Do not try to change the subject. You know that I was worried about you because if you were to have a fall you might not be found for an age. If you have to go riding, could you not take a man with you?’
‘My love, I was only going for a canter around your lands.’ Baldwin sighed. ‘I have ridden in more dangerous locations, you know.’
‘Yes, I know, but a wounded man who falls can die all too easily. You should be resting, husband!’
He groaned. ‘I need to be fit, woman! I have to get myself ready again …’
‘For what? Do you think that if the king was to send his host to Scotland again, he’d order all the oldest knights to join him?’
‘I don’t think I’m quite his oldest,’ Baldwin protested.
‘Perhaps not quite,’ she agreed.
‘I’m good enough for some activities still,’ he persisted.
As they had spoken, they had left the stables, and now they stood before the little manor. ‘Do not think to get round me like that!’ she scolded him.
‘If you won’t stop your nagging,’ he said firmly, stepping forward until her back was against the wall of the manor, ‘I shall have to see how I may silence you.’
‘You won’t stop me by frivolous diversions. I want you to rest more.’
‘Don’t avert your face, woman,’ he growled, mock-aggressively, putting a hand to her throat and turning her face towards him with his thumb.
‘Mistress?’
Baldwin stared deeply into his wife’s widely innocent eyes. ‘I swear I’ll murder that …’
‘We’re here, Emma!’ Jeanne called happily, slipping under his arm and away. ‘What is it?’
Emma looked from one to the other with a scowl of distaste on her face. ‘There’s a message for the master. Sir Baldwin, I think you should come and see this wretch.’
‘Who is it?’ Baldwin demanded, furious to have missed an opportunity for dalliance with his wife, but pleased that at least Jeanne could not return to her attack about his resting.
‘Sir Baldwin! It’s me, sir, Wat. I have an urgent message from Edgar!’
Chapter Eight
Robert Crokers had needed all the Sunday and Monday just to clear the mess from his house. The fire had taken all his belongings with it, and the building was a blackened shell that stank of tar and soot, but with the help of the man whom Sir Odo had brought it was soon cleared out, and the rubbish taken to his little midden.
The worst of the burned rafters had been pulled down, apart from one which wouldn’t break apart, and that they had left, assuming that if the weight of three men dangling from it wouldn’t move it, neither would some straw thatching. They’d swept and brushed the walls and floor until the stench of burning was all but gone, and meanwhile others had thrown poles up over the roof to create a ridge, to which they nailed long, thin planks. Before long, straw brought from Sir Odo’s storehouse had been thrown haphazardly on top, and today two of the men from the vill who were best at thatching came to finish the job, complaining all the while that the men should have waited for them to arrive.
‘It’d have been easier if those useless turds had laid the straw more carefully.’
‘Ah. If they had more than shit for brains, they’d be dangerous,’ his friend commented, chewing a straw.
Still, by the middle of the third day, the Tuesday, the house was almost renewed. There was a roof, and Robert had a palliasse laid out on a low, rough bed. His hearth was soon lighted, and for lunch he was able to set his pot over the fire and make his own pottage from the peas and leaves which Odo’s men had left for him.
‘Should be all right now,’ said Walter. He was a cadaverously thin man, one of Sir Odo’s older men-at-arms, who squatted beside the fire and held his gnarled hands to it appreciatively. ‘The roof is safe enough.’
‘What if they come back, though?’ Robert said. ‘Here I’m an easy target for them.’
Walter sniffed, his sunburned face the colour of old chestnut. His eyes were almost hidden beneath his thick brows, and he shot a look at Robert, then hawked and spat into the fire. ‘They’re not after you personally. Just the land. Anyway, I doubt whether they’ll be back here for a while.’
‘Why? How can you be so sure?’
‘They’ve left a message. They wanted Sir Odo to know they want this land, and they’ll gradually try to increase the pressure on him to give it up and leave all the land this side of the river to them.’
‘So they could return at any time?’ Robert squeaked.
‘No. Now they’ve sent the warning, they’ll start to use the courts. This was just to stop anyone arguing and making the lawyers’ fees too high. That’s all.’
‘But Sir Odo can’t give up the land — it’s not his. What then?’
‘They may come back and threaten war, but you should be safe enough. Why’d they hurt you? You’re nothing to them. No, if they wanted to do some damage, fine, they’d come here and warn you off, then fire the house. Meanwhile they’d be doing all they could to force Sir Odo, and through him Sir John Sully, off this land. If they could, they’d get the rest of the manor too. They like land.’
‘How could an honourable knight behave like that, though?’ Robert demanded. ‘Surely Sir Geoffrey is a true knight?’
Walter gave him a look in which surprise and contempt were equally mixed. ‘Of course he is. And all he’s doing is what a true knight should: following his master’s bidding.’
Robert nodded. He knew nothing of the ways of fighting men. All he really knew was sheep and sheepdogs.