Chapter Fourteen
When John rose and left the room to fetch some water, Hugh was glad to see him go.
Shepherd, farmer, moorman and more recently servant, Hugh had lived with the companionship of others, but he was essentially self-reliant. He had friends, and he valued them, but right now he knew that they were all far away. His master was many miles to the south; his friend Edgar, the servant of Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, was miles east at the manor near Cadbury. He might be on his way, but he had responsibilities; Hugh was alone here.
Men had taken it into their heads to attack him, and had killed the only woman who had ever looked at him. He wouldn’t weep. He couldn’t. But the sight of her was in his mind, her smell seemed to be in his nose, and if he closed his eyes he could almost feel her body. Everything that he was, everything that he loved and wanted, had been taken from him. Perhaps by rogue felons, just a wandering gang of outlaws who had spotted his house and seen an easy target for their malice. They approached it, raped his woman, killed her, and thought that they’d killed him too.
Except he knew that was ballocks. It made no sense. If there was a gang of outlaws in the area, he’d have heard. You couldn’t hide a murderous group of men so easily, not in a place like this. And Hugh knew that the men of Monkleigh were keen on taking hold of Iddesleigh. It had been a subject of conversation for a long while. Everybody in Iddesleigh knew it.
And Hugh was an outsider, as Constance was too. He could be attacked without upsetting the lord of the manor of Iddesleigh. He was a safe target.
It was easy to kill Constance and force Hugh from their land. Very easy, he thought, and hurled his axe at a log. It struck and rolled over and over, the blade embedded in the wood.
Perkin was out at the bog and digging when Adcock arrived, and he groaned inwardly to see the new sergeant. He looked over at the other men working with him. Beorn was quick to see the point of his gaze, shot a glance over his shoulder, and set to with more enthusiasm than before, although one lad seemed only to find amusement in Adcock’s appearance. He stood and peered at him. ‘That the new sergeant, Perkin? Dun’t look much.’
‘Just dig, ’Tin.. He’s here to see whether we’re working, and you setting your arm on your shovel and looking at the view ain’t likely to impress him much, is it?’
‘I just wondered what he was like.’
Perkin grunted. If Martin wanted to get into trouble, that was his lookout, not Perkin’s. Perkin had no authority to order him about.
He didn’t want to be here at the bog, and he wasn’t happy about his position in the manor. Ever since finding Ailward’s body, he had been more and more unsettled. Men had disputes, yes, and once in a while someone might be struck down, but it was rarely anything so disgraceful as a murderous attack. Far more common that a man would get roaring drunk and try to swing a fist, only to have his head clubbed by a comrade who was keen to keep the peace.
Ailward had been murdered, though. There was blood all over him from the smashed skull, and Perkin reckoned that although the coroner had registered the stab wound on the naked body as they rolled it about in front of him, so that the jury could see it and agree with his findings, it was the ruin of his head that killed him. The stab came later, to make sure of him. Perkin had an idea that a man like that suspicious son of a Barnstaple whore wouldn’t have let anyone attack him from in front. Only someone behind him could kill him, so his attacker had perhaps beaten him with a club, or perhaps a rock?
Perkin stood up suddenly, scowling ferociously as he considered this new possibility.
‘You are doing well,’ Adcock commented. He had drawn level with Perkin as the peasant had mused on the murder, and now he stood at his side and peered down into the channel cut from the stream towards the roadway and the bog beyond. ‘With luck it will not take long now.’
‘No, master,’ Perkin muttered.
Adcock glanced at him. ‘Perkin, I don’t … I am not here as a lord or something, to make your life harsh. All I want is to make this estate work well for all of us. And then we’ll have a good surplus, I hope, and no one will go hungry.’
‘Good.’
‘But you don’t trust me?’
‘It’s not that. I’m just thinking of that inquest. It seemed odd that the coroner should be asked to come back here.’
Adcock reddened. ‘I think it was just coincidence.’
‘What was?’
‘That the coroner was another knight of our master, Lord Despenser.’
Perkin was watching his face, and as Adcock spoke he realised what the man was implying. The Despensers were taking an interest in the murder of their sergeant, which was natural, but perhaps it meant the findings weren’t entirely unbiased. And then there was the other matter …
‘Did the coroner go to the other murders?’ he asked casually.
‘I believe he did,’ Adcock said, as calmly. ‘But I do not think he had much time to spend there.’
‘That would be no surprise — he was here for an age, eating and drinking with Sir Geoffrey,’ Perkin guessed.
Adcock was suddenly nervous. This peasant was too knowing for his comfort. He hated his own suspicions: that the coroner had been called here to leave Ailward’s death open, that he’d been bribed not to rock Sir Geoffrey’s boat. Adcock had heard Sir Geoffrey and the coroner talk quietly about Iddesleigh and the murdered family up there, and later, as the coroner was leaving, Adcock saw a little purse pass between them. It could only mean that Sir Geoffrey wanted the murders covered up, and that he was paying to protect his own men — or himself.
It was a foul reflection. To live in a manor where he suspected his own master of murders was appalling. As it was, he daren’t even think of bringing his woman within miles of the place in case she was raped.
He nodded harshly, staring back at the bog. It would not be long before the workers had cut the channel far enough. And then they would see the water gushing from the mire to the stream and away. Better to concentrate on that, on his work, than on his new position and the fears that were drowning his senses.
There were other tasks for him, though. He had seen that a pasture farther up the hill needed to have its hedge renewed. Perhaps he should attend to that. He’d leave this unsettling churl, and get on with his other duties.
Perkin watched him go, and then turned back to his work. ‘Come on, you lazy sodomites! What, looking for a sheep to shag, ’Tin? No? Then dig, boy, dig!’
Jeanne could feel Simon’s pain as soon as she saw him. ‘Oh, Simon, I am so sorry!’
Baldwin had insisted on fetching his wife as soon as Jankin’s wife brought out their food, and now Jeanne and the two men sat at the table with a platter filled with pig’s liver, bacon, kidneys, and a loaf. Jankin did not believe in guests going hungry when they could leave his inn replete.
For Jeanne the table would have appeared daunting at the best of times, but today, seeing Simon so distraught, she found it was impossible to do justice to such a spread. She put her hand on his with sympathy.
It was plain that Simon was feeling his loss. His eyes were sunken and red-rimmed; his usually hale features were pale and he had acquired a curious habit of rubbing his thumbs against his fingers, as though both hands were raw from handling his reins. He’d bitten his nails to the quick, too, and she saw that two fingers were bleeding from over-enthusiastic nibbling.