‘This looks a fine manor, Beorn.’
‘Aye, it is.’
‘But, tell me,’ Adcock said hesitantly. ‘The men at the hall all seem to go abroad fully armed the whole time. Is there some fear of attack?’
‘It’s not fear of someone being attacked!’ Beorn burst out with a guffaw, and then he silenced himself and gazed about him with a swift caution. ‘You must be careful talking about such things.’
‘Why? Tell me what you know.’
‘Not for me to say,’ Beorn said, and from that moment he was as communicative as any other Devon peasant talking to a stranger.
Pagan had seen to the meal, and afterwards Isabel nodded to him briefly to indicate he could leave the room. He did so, pulling the door closed behind him and breathing in the cool air of the early evening before making his way homewards. It was a goodly walk, up to the north-east of the old hall, and he peered at it jealously as was his wont.
In the past he would have slept in the house with the two women, but Lady Isabel preferred that he returned to his home at nights now. It was since Ailward’s death, he recalled, as though she didn’t trust him any more … or perhaps because she wondered whether he might learn something?
That was daft, though. What could she think he might …
Pagan stopped and slowly turned to look back towards the house where Isabel and Malkin lived. Isabel had grown rather short with the younger woman recently. If she suspected that Malkin could have killed her own husband, could Isabel think to protect her daughter-in-law and grandchild by keeping all knowledge of that petit treason from her own steward? She’d not want anyone to hear of it, certainly.
It was hard to imagine Malkin could have committed such an act, though. Even today she had been very weepy. It was growing to be her usual condition. One of the maids had told him that Malkin slept very poorly. There was the sound of weeping into the early hours every night.
‘It’ll drive me to despair, it will,’ the maid had said.
Pagan had little sympathy with such feelings. So far as he was concerned, the servants all owed their service to the family. It was wrong to speak of tears late into the night — and yet he daren’t speak harshly to the girl in case she stopped telling him how the women were. It mattered to him.
Certainly Malkin was very sad since the death of Ailward. Lady Isabel was different — she mourned her son, but she remembered her husband with more affection. She missed him dreadfully, as a woman should. Losing him had meant losing her companion. Naturally she didn’t feel the same about Ailward. He was not formed from the same mould.
Not at all the same mould, as Pagan knew only too well. Which was probably why Lady Isabel felt it better that he should not be in the house now that the two men were dead. Having Pagan there once more could prove too much of a temptation to the old strumpet.
It was all very disorientating to a newcomer, but Adcock had done the best he could. He had ordered that the little bog should be emptied, showing the peasants how they might dig a trench to release the moisture from it. Later, he felt sure, the second bog could be drained too, but better to start with one and see how it went. After that, he went to study the middens, check the fields, see how the animals fared in their winter stables, and begin to take a hold of the place.
It was not easy, the more so because he was sure that there were a hundred different secrets about the manor.
For one thing, as he had noticed from the first day, it was a remarkably heavily manned place. Usually a house this size would have one knight, and then would depend on a number of servants and peasants, armed with billhooks and daggers, to protect it. The idea that anyone could need the three and twenty fellows who lived here was laughable.
Then there was the curious way in which the manor was kept. Visitors were not encouraged, and when strangers appeared all the men in the place kept quiet. Sir Geoffrey would talk, but the rest would stand silent and surly, eyeing the newcomers with grave distrust. Even provisions brought from the vill were left at the door and taken in when the household rose. Late, normally. There was a deal of singing and gambling of an evening, and little by way of religious observance. In fact Adcock had been surprised by the lack of any Christian sentiment among the men in the hall. Oh, he knew that often the priest in a vill would give men leave to go to their fields of a Sunday morning before Mass, provided that they attended church later, because it was often impossible for a peasant to find time to harvest his own crops after he had performed his statutory labour for his master otherwise, but to learn that of all the household only four men would go to church on a Sunday came as a shock.
And finally there was the attack on his neighbour’s sergeant.
It was wrong; to set upon a neighbour in his own house on his own land struck at the heart of all Adcock believed. To him it seemed clear that it was a matter of simple blackmail — if you don’t pay me, I’ll come and burn your house again. And it was that which persuaded him of the sort of manor into which he had arrived.
If he was to be sergeant in a manor that was little better than a den of thieves and rogues, at least he would do his own duty well, though. Which was why he was pleased to see that the bog was draining nicely. Hopefully before long it would be empty and he could show how more land could be cleared for use.
But now, as he rolled over in his bed, he could hear more muttered orders and a clanking of metal. There was a rattle as steel was dropped, and a hissed curse against the offender, and then he heard clattering hooves and the noise of men mounting and riding off.
And at that sound, he closed his eyes tight shut and prayed that, whomsoever they were seeking, they might miss him.
Chapter Twelve
Baldwin woke to find the morning overcast and grim. He rose quietly, leaving his wife in the small bed, and pulled a linen shirt over his nakedness as protection against the cold.
The inn was a pleasing house, with one large communal room for travellers, and this smaller chamber up some stairs to keep it farther away from the damp floor. It had the disadvantage that smoke from the fire would rise into it, but there was the huge advantage, so far as Baldwin was concerned, that there was no space for Emma. She had slept downstairs with the others in the communal room.
Downstairs, Baldwin asked a maid for some fresh water to drink, because when he had lived as a warrior monk he had chosen a frugal life. The expression on her face told him that this was forlorn hope, though, and he sighed and reluctantly asked for a weak ale — and a word with her master.
The owner was soon with him: a smiling, friendly man with the large build of a Devon farmer and a round, cheerful face. ‘Just back from the pasture,’ he commented, wiping his hands on his towel. ‘It’s thirsty work, too. How can I serve you, master?’
Baldwin motioned towards his barrel. ‘Would you join me in a drink?’
‘I’d be glad to.’
‘Your name?’
‘Jankin, sir. From Exbourne. I took over this place when my wife’s father died, and have lived here ever since. It’s a good vill.’
‘I am known as Sir Baldwin, I am Keeper of the King’s Peace, and I have been called here because of the murders.’
Jankin’s face grew blank. ‘It was a terrible thing, sir. All of them dead like that. But what makes you say it was murder?’
‘It was what I was told — that the family was murdered.’
‘I don’t know where that came from, sir,’ Jankin said. ‘Here everyone said it was an accident.’
There was a stolid certainty about his tone, but Baldwin saw something else in his eyes: a blankness, as though there was more to the story.