‘Harrumph! Don’t see what you’re so upset about. It’s not like the little family up the road were close to you, is it? That scruffy tatterdemalion Hugh was ever a foolish little man, you used to say.’
‘Perhaps I did on occasion,’ Jeanne said with spirit, ‘but I never took pleasure in denigrating him like you, and I would prefer not to hear any more insulting words about him now the poor man is dead.’
Emma snorted and gazed about her once more, her small eyes seeking fresh amusement. ‘Shame about his wife. Her being a nun and all.’
Jeanne winced. She could almost hear the necks creaking as all the men in the room turned to stare at the two women. ‘Emma, be silent!’
‘Why? She was a nun. Don’t you remember? Hugh met her at Belstone, and she …’
Jeanne leaned forward and removed her cup of wine. ‘You have had enough.’
‘But I haven’t finished it!’
‘I think you have!’
Emma sank back and sulkily cast an eye about the room again. ‘Look at this place! What do you want?’
This was addressed to a boy who, intrigued by the conversation which all had heard, was leaning round to peer at Emma from between two older lads.
‘You stick to your drink and leave two ladies alone,’ Emma said haughtily.
‘Was it true?’ called a man from the bar near Jankin. ‘Was she really a nun?’
Jeanne glared at Emma, but failed to catch her maid’s attention.
‘Yes. Of course she was. Poor chit, she won’t have a chance to confess her sins now, will she?’
‘Shouldn’t have buried her, should you, Matthew?’ said another man. ‘If she were a runaway, she shouldn’t be put into the churchyard, should she?’
‘Specially if she had a bastard!’ another called. ‘She had a boy, didn’t she? If she was a bride of Christ, that lad was a bastard. Stands to reason.’
Matthew cast a look at Jeanne in which several emotions were mingled, and Jeanne held her chin up with a supercilious look in her eye. She would not have Hugh’s wife’s memory impugned. ‘Yes?’
‘May I speak with you a moment, my lady?’ he asked, slipping from the bar and crossing towards the door.
Jeanne remained seated for a moment or two, before nodding and standing, gently shifting Richalda to her shoulder. When Emma moved to join her, she hurriedly held out her hand and shook her head. ‘You wait there,’ she commanded sternly. ‘And this time keep silent, as I said. I don’t want any more trouble!’
Emma glanced about her with a slightly curled lip.
‘Not much chance of me causing trouble in here, is there?’
Hugh left the house for a moment, wondering how well his leg was healing. To his surprise, it held up well as he crossed the ground outside, and he felt a sudden burst of confidence. He would be able to use it, and that meant he could seek to avenge Constance. It was all he wanted.
She had been so good for him. He’d learned the delights of family life, the joys of a home filled with the sounds of a child at play. Resting before his fire, his exhaustion seeping away, the glowing flames warming his face after the chill of the wintry wind, he had known real happiness. It was a strange sensation, one he had never fully experienced before.
The worst of it all was this feeling of guilt. If only he had returned to the house earlier and not dallied at the hedge, perhaps he could have saved her, protected her from the attackers. He could have done — he should have done; he should have been there for his woman.
He could feel the hot tears of frustration and rage prickling again. The idea that she died alone, crying for help while …
But he was not so far away that he could have missed her screams, surely? She had a good voice, and when she scolded her son Hugh could usually hear her from up in the field. Yet that day he had heard nothing. She must have called for him, though, because she must have known that no one would go to her rescue if she didn’t. Constance was no fool. She must have realised that Hugh could have heard her if she had cried out. He wasn’t that far away. She knew that.
Surely, though, he must have heard her screaming.
Suddenly Hugh tottered. He had to reach out an arm and support himself against the wall. As his legs weakened and he slowly sank to the ground, he felt the sobbing start again deep in his breast.
If he hadn’t heard her, it was because she had not called for him. And she hadn’t called for him because she didn’t want to have him there to witness her shame. Or, worse, because she didn’t want him to be hurt. She had kept quiet as the men took her and killed her, accepting her fate while her man worked so near. She had died quietly so that he wouldn’t himself be hurt.
He covered his face and tried to keep the sound of his heartfelt weeping as quiet as possible.
John found him there later, his arms outstretched against the wall like a man on the cross, his eyes cast up to heaven; a man who sought for help in his despair.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jeanne was quite prepared for a fight. There was no priest alive who could scare her. She knew too many good men of God to be fearful of a fellow like this, a lowly vill’s vicar. If Matthew had been bright enough to have any prospects of enhancement, he wouldn’t be here in this little parish. He’d be in Exeter with the bishop, or studying in a university.
He stood waiting outside, and when Jeanne saw him he glanced at the inn, then beckoned her to follow him.
To her surprise he did not walk to his church, over to the right. Instead, he led her down the left-hand track to the roadway, and then further eastwards, along the path towards Hugh’s burned-out house. When he reached it, he stood with his hands tucked in the sleeves of his robe against the chill.
‘Father?’ Jeanne prompted.
‘When I came here, I was only very young,’ Matthew said inconsequentially. He was gazing about him at the place, almost as though he had forgotten that Jeanne was there with him. ‘At the time this was the home of the manor’s cowherd. He was a good, bluff man, old Sandy. Named for his hair, he was. Quite a yellow-golden colour it was, although by the time I came here it looked as though the colour had been washed out. He was an old man. His wife had died a long time before, although I can’t remember why now. Sandy did tell me, but whether it was a fever or an accident, I can’t tell. There have been so many deaths since I first came here.’
He looked back at the building. It was a sad sight. Once it had been a thriving place, with the cowherder coming home at the end of his day to see all his children running towards him, his wife perhaps in the doorway, wiping her hands after her day’s work: looking after the children, cleaning them, washing soiled clothing, cooking … and he would be exhausted after working in his fields or seeing to his master’s herd with his oldest boy. It was a life Matthew could understand. His own father had been a cattleherd.
‘Do you think that the house will be rebuilt?’ Jeanne asked, seeing the direction of his gaze.
He sighed. ‘I hope so. It’s dreadful to see a home broken down like this. Shocking somehow to think that it could be so easily destroyed.’
‘Surely someone will see the walls and put up a new roof. There are not that many spare plots with good walls.’
‘I shall see whether I can persuade Sir John Sully to restore it.’
Jeanne frowned. ‘Wasn’t all this land owned by the prioress of Belstone?’ The prioress had given this little holding to Constance, she recalled.
‘It was, but over time much land has been sold to support the priory in its trials. The priory has little money, and must shift for itself most of the time. I’ve heard that this holding was sold off some eighteen months ago. The prioress retains rights to the church and to some of the land, but mostly Sir John Sully is responsible now. I shall have to tell the prioress what has happened, though. The poor woman. She had been a nun, you know.’