One thing was clear, though. If the queen and Mortimer had become so close that even a cloth-headed fool like Bishop Stapledon could spot it, the matter was more serious than he had realised. That being so, he might have to plan differently, for that could well mean that the queen and the traitor were already so far advanced in their plots that they didn’t care whether the bishop, and therefore the king, were to learn of them. Although there was the other possibility: that the queen had never expected or intended that the bishop should return safely to England. If that was so, then perhaps her devious little mind had been unsettled from its smooth road, and the result could be that the whole of her carefully laid scheme might be thrown into disarray. Although Sir Hugh had no idea how to effect that desirable outcome.
But it might not be her plan at all. Perhaps it was all conceived by Mortimer and the French king. Neither of them was a friend to Sir Hugh, of course, but if a man was being stalked by enemies, it was best to know which adversary was nearest. Was it possible that the bishop himself was also allying himself to the queen? If all the others in France had moved to support her, perhaps the bishop too had …
No. That was impossible. The haughty little bitch would never consider him as a friend. The bishop had seen to it that she had lost all power and influence at court, removing from her all her estates and revenues as soon as war with the French began last year. The result had been a shameful curtailing of her life and freedom, even the removal of her children so that she might not pollute their minds with nonsense about the French. She would only ever plot to see Bishop Walter destroyed, never with him.
Not that the others with the bishop were similarly free of suspicion. The Keeper of the King’s Peace he had loathed for some time, as he had Simon Puttock, and the other knight, the sometime coroner Sir Richard de Welles, was an unknown quantity but appeared to be quite friendly with the other two.
Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, he knew, had been moderately well regarded by the queen before her embassy to France. It would be hardly a surprise if he and she had further cemented their friendship while together in Paris. And Sir Baldwin had been a thorn in Sir Hugh’s side for at least a year.
Puttock was a lesser threat. He was only a peasant, when all was said and done. He was owned by Sir Hugh de Courtenay, Baron of Devon, and could easily be neutralised. In fact he might well already have been — Despenser’s men had bullied him earlier this year. If he tried to do anything to harm Sir Hugh, he would find that there were other problems a wealthy man could bring to bear on him. Still, a fellow with family and no money could be turned into a useful asset.
After all, this Puttock was a known element. Perhaps Sir Hugh should have him brought here to discuss French affairs in private.
Abbeyford Woods, south of Jacobstowe
Bill Lark bent his head and rested on his staff as the verdicts were announced.
Much more of this and he’d be falling asleep while standing, he reckoned. The coroner had been as quick as he could be, admittedly, but the number of bodies to be gathered, studied, stripped naked and rolled over and over before the jury were so many that the matter had taken the best part of the day. And now that the inquest was done, there was the additional work of loading all the bodies on a cart to take them to the little graveyard, where they could be given a decent burial; seeing to the vigil while they were held before the altar; and of course collecting of the money the coroner had imposed as fines on the community for the infringement of the King’s Peace.
‘Bailiff, I am sorry that the vill has to suffer this,’ the coroner said quietly, walking up to join Bill. ‘I had no choice.’
‘I understand.’ And he did. The deodand was a fine imposed to the value of the murder weapon, and in a case like this, where many weapons had been used, each must be separately accounted for the injuries done to each person. Although the coroner had managed to reduce the fines a little by ignoring some of those wounds that would not have killed, he was duty bound to include all those that appeared to be more serious. The other fine, the murdrum, must be imposed where the victims were not known, and since none of these was known to any about here, the full amount must be demanded of the people of the hundred.
‘We are no nearer learning who could have done this,’ the coroner said.
The bailiff could not argue with that. ‘We’ll probably never know. Some outlaws are like that. They arrive in an area, commit a few crimes, and then move on to find better pickings elsewhere. It’s likely we’ll never see them.’
It was all too true. The sort of men who came and committed this type of crime were not locals. It had not been carried out by inexperienced fighters; these victims had been killed by professionals. In any case, in Bill’s experience, once a coroner had pronounced on a death, that was an end to the matter. No coroner would put himself out too much — and without the support even of a coroner, there was little if anything that Bill could himself do. So he would probably never learn more about these deaths. They would be remembered by those who lived here for some years and then forgotten. Perhaps someone might pass by asking about some folks who had disappeared, but in the absence of anything to say who these victims were, no one would ever know, in all likelihood, whether their missing father or husband was lying in a grave at Jacobstowe with the rest of this party or not.
The coroner was scowling at the bodies as they were collected and slung on to the carts. ‘What of the people in the area? I find it hard to imagine that no one saw or heard anyone.’
‘They’d have been sleeping and-’
‘Pig shit! You mean to tell me that a force large enough to kill these men could have ridden away from here without anyone noticing? Do you think I look that much of a fool?’
‘No, Coroner, but you have to understand that we’re so far apart here, many of us, that a force could have ridden between houses and gone without anyone hearing, if they were careful.’
The coroner turned away. ‘They’d have had to go up that road north or south. There’s no track east or west — not nearby. How far north could they have gone?’
‘They didn’t get to Jacobstowe, I know that much.’
‘Then they turned off before that, unless they went south. But south would mean getting closer to Oakhampton,’ the coroner mused.
‘Why are you so troubled by them? They’re someone else’s problem now,’ Bill said.
Sir Peregrine looked at him. ‘No, man. They are our problem. They committed murder here, and I’ll catch them if I can. I don’t give a farthing for the souls of men who slaughter women and children. If I could do anything that would capture them, I’d do it.’
‘We don’t even know who many of them were,’ Bill muttered. ‘Just some monks and their guards — I suppose we can learn their names. But the others?’
There was a clattering, thundering noise from behind them, and Bill turned to see a cart approaching. In the back were five bodies. The two on the top were the children whom they had discovered under the blanket. He thought of his own little Ant as he looked at the two small figures rolling and jerking in the back of the cart. The coroner had seemed the same as all the others, but just now there had been a distinct tone of determination in his voice. It almost made Bill think that he was serious.
‘We’ll learn them,’ Sir Peregrine said firmly. ‘I will not have innocents laid to rest in graves without headstones. Damn the souls of those who did this! I want them hanging!’