But perhaps it was a justified punishment, for so crassly trying to put all the blame on him for her feelings now, when after all, his poor beautiful face was evidence enough that her man was the one who had suffered and paid for his mortal sins in those last moments of life.
Oh, if only she had been there to take vengeance on the men who did this!
The vicar was motioning to her to turn, and she realised that the hearse was being lifted, to be carried out to the cemetery. In a daze, she followed it, behind the vicar, as he mumbled his incomprehensible words in that weird language.
The graveyard was behind the church, and from here she could see the sweep of the land about. The cemetery was high up, as though the souls would need a tall springboard to make their way to heaven. Not that her man would.
It was a cool day, the sun smothered by grey clouds, and she could feel a shiver run through her body as she looked down. The grave looked so desolate. She would have liked to sprinkle flowers in there. Forget-me-nots, cowslips, poppies, all the flowers he had adored. But this time of year there was nothing. Nothing at all. Even the last roses had given up their petals. All poor Bill could have was his hood. She had brought it with her, tucked into her bosom like a talisman against this hideous ending.
Ant sniffled, and the vicar hesitated, glaring at him as though it was the boy’s fault that he had been interrupted. He should have understood that a child’s despair could not be willed away or thrashed from him. He had to have his cry. It was the natural way.
Anyway, what was the use of the vicar’s words, when no one could understand them? Some said they liked to hear them because they were comforting, like the little rag dolls children would take with them to bed. Well, she had no need of such toys. She would have been happier if he would only talk to her in English, in the good tongue of the land here, the language her husband had spoken, but this gobbledegook was meaningless. It was the language of the priests and vicars who tried to protect souls, and who couldn’t protect her man from those who wanted to kill him. The religious folk were no good to her. She needed a man who could find her husband’s murderers and kill them for her. But there were none about who could do that. The coroner himself had said as much.
At the grave, the body was lifted clumsily and three men helped the sexton to lower it to the edge. The hole looked enormous to her, compared with the frail bundle of linen that had been her husband. Her Bill.
The corpse had been stiff as a plank when they brought him to her. Overnight she had thought it was as if he was gripping hold of his body still, determined not to give up his life, desperate to retain his hold on it. But not now. She could see that his limbs were flaccid and loose. There was no form of life in that wrapping. It was just an accumulation of bones and meat, like the animals killed and butchered each year. It wasn’t her man any more. He had gone. Truly, he had gone.
She wept again now, silent tears that flowed down her cheeks, while Ant began to wail. She had to pick him up and cradle him as he bawled for his incomprehension, for his father, whom he could never know. For the world that had suddenly become so threatening to him.
It was in the midst of her tears that she saw the three men standing and watching. And then, as the people began to depart, she saw them walk towards the vicar: one knight, one monk and another man, with a grim face.
She saw them, but didn’t take notice. Instead she walked to the graveside and peered down with Ant. In her hands she had the hood now, and she took it out, holding it to her face, inhaling his scent as though that would keep him here with her just a little longer. A shred of linen moved aside, and she found herself staring at a small patch of his flesh, just about his cheek. It was the last sight she would have of him.
‘Madam? May we speak with you about your husband?’ she heard, and turned to find the three men nearby. The man who spoke was the grim-faced one. But now, as she looked at him, she saw that there was something else in his eyes, and it made her spark to rage in an instant.
She didn’t want his pity.
Road near Oakhampton
‘You worried about passing through the town again?’
Basil was sitting with one thigh flung over his horse’s withers, picking at a scrap of meat that was wedged between two teeth as he cast a grin at the other men.
Osbert didn’t look at him. There was no need to. He knew all about Basil. He was the sort of weakly creature who’d make fun of those stronger than him when he had men at his back, just to show that he had the greater force with him. Arrogant, foolish, he had grown to manhood with violence all around him. Living rough, as they all had, Basil had never known the gentle comforts of life in a great hall, had never seen the subtle interplay of characters as those with authority negotiated their way around the customs and little delicacies that were so essential to life in a large household. Instead he believed in simple, raw power. And because he was his father’s son, he believed in exercising that power at every possible opportunity.
‘Not scared, no.’
There was plenty to think about. Osbert had been through the messenger’s pouch, looking for the message that should have been there, but there was nothing. It was possible, he knew, that the man had been given a verbal message, but if that was the case, it was so much the better that he was dead. No one would want him to go straight to the king and blurt out something about the offer made to Busse at Tavistock. No, it was probably better this way. And since the monk hadn’t accepted, they’d have to think up some alternative. Sir Robert had more or less hinted that he reckoned that would be the way of things. He expected that they would have to take some other approach to forcing Busse to drop out of the running for the abbacy. He didn’t believe Busse was as corruptible as Despenser felt; perhaps it was merely that Despenser assumed everyone had a price.
‘Oh, I didn’t ask if you were scared, Os. I wouldn’t suggest that. No, I thought you might be a little concerned, though. Anxious, right? After all, that was the town where you showed your ability to lead strangers, eh?’
Osbert groaned to himself. The lad would keep on needling at a man. ‘It’s easy. Told them the road past your father was too dangerous.’
‘And it is, isn’t it? But the way you took them, that was perfect. Just far enough to make them secure for us to catch them. The only problem-’
‘I’m not worried about Oakhampton. It’s not for me we avoid it.’
‘Oh, it’s for my good, then?’ Basil laughed.
There were times like this when Osbert could still see the little boy that this lad had once been.
Before their fall from the king’s household, branded traitors and forced to wander the roads and forests, Basil had been a happy-go-lucky boy. There hadn’t been a great problem with him. He’d been the same as all boys: using slings and bows, practising his swordplay, and most of all enjoying a joke and some fun. But somehow something had loosened in his head or his heart. Osbert reckoned he had needed the calming influence of a woman while he was younger. Too late now. Now he was a man, and he wouldn’t listen to anyone. That had been shown by his capture of the miller’s daughter. They’d had to have the sheriff agree his innocence in court for that, and later see to the death of the miller himself, just to ensure that Basil was safe.
Osbert was sure that Basil would be the last of his line. He would be sure to die before long, once his father’s restraining influence was gone. If he kept up this behaviour for much longer, it would be Osbert himself who killed him. While he kept on making snide little comments about the others all the time, winding a rope about their souls tighter and tighter, until at last a man had to explode, that was one thing; if he tried it with Osbert, he would soon learn his error.