‘Perhaps. I don’t deny it’s possible. If that is right, though, it would imply a well-organised force.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Just this: a rearguard left behind to cover their trail or to guard against attack shows military thinking. But if someone was left behind they would have gone within hours of the force passing by. No, it cannot have been a guard. More likely it was a fresh person out for personal gain.’
‘So you consider it likely that the killing of the reeve was entirely unconnected? Or it was a man on a freelance mission? Riding out, he sought any suitable target for his attack, and picked upon a lone wandering reeve with no money?’ Simon said with a grin.
‘You may chuckle, Bailiff. I would wager a few pennies that the reeve was more unfortunate than you’d think. He could have been at home, curled up around that wife of his, but instead he went out and was met by a man on his way. The fellow realised he had money-’
‘Scarcely likely.’
‘Well, perhaps he thought the reeve was on the trail of his companions. so he chose to remove him before he could learn where they all came from.’
‘And where did they?’ Simon wondered aloud. ‘They cannot fade into the undergrowth. A force large enough to kill so many in so efficient a manner must have a goodly number of men.’
He turned. The host was in the rear of the room, and when Simon beckoned, the man hurried over. ‘Masters? How may I serve you?’
‘About here are there any large manors with a knight or squire living in them?’ Simon asked.
‘Not near here, no, lording. There are no great lords about here. Not even a squire for miles.’
‘Where is the nearest man-at-arms, then?’ Sir Richard demanded. ‘A man with a small force who’re trained to the saddle and to arms. There must be someone not too far away.’
‘There is Sir John de Sully. He lives up at Ashreigny.’
‘I know him,’ Simon said.
‘I too,’ Coroner Richard agreed. ‘He’s an honourable man. Who else?’
The landlord scratched his head. ‘There’s the castle at Oakhampton. The Courtenay family maintains a small force there.’
Simon considered. ‘That would make more sense, certainly. The men there could have seen these travellers as they passed along the Cornwall road, for they would have journeyed up there once they were off the Tavistock road, just as we did this morning. But the coppicers and charcoal burners were very sure that no one came up from their direction, nor returned that way.’
‘Yes. And the Courtenays are not so foolish as to try to rob and kill so many,’ the coroner responded.
‘No,’ Simon agreed thoughtfully. ‘Although the baron himself lives mostly in Tiverton, he may have a castellan at Oakhampton who is less level headed.’
‘True enough. There are men all over the country who are less reliable than they should be,’ the coroner said sadly. ‘My own wife was killed by a servant I trusted. No man can entirely trust even his own men.’
‘There is nobody else,’ the host said helpfully.
‘What of the east?’ asked Simon. ‘The reeve’s footprints were heading in that direction, Sir Richard.’ And the charcoal burners had mentioned the men from Bow, which was east.
‘Aye. True enough,’ the coroner said, cheering up. ‘What of that way?’
‘There’s no force at Tawton, nor at Sampford,’ the host said, scratching at his head with a frown. ‘Think there’s a small fortified manor east of it, though. What’s that place called?’ he added to himself in a mutter. ‘Bow! Sir Robert of Traci, he’s over there.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nymet Traci
Sir Robert de Traci stalked along his hall and out into the yard, one hand on the pommel of his sword. ‘Osbert? How was it?’
His henchman shook his head. ‘As you’d expect.’
The knight shrugged. ‘Well, no matter. I didn’t expect more. So the abbot-elect didn’t send a note with the messenger?’
‘There was nothing there, no,’ Osbert said.
‘The messenger’s dead? I don’t want any risk that he could get back to the king. Good, good. The main thing is, the message was delivered. Now we’ll have to use a little guile to bring in the big fish. You don’t catch a salmon by beckoning, do you? The idea was all right, but there was never much likelihood that it would work for a man like the aspiring abbot. He’s too wily for that. No, what we need is a more realistic temptation for him to come to us.’
‘What will you do to tempt him, then?’ Osbert said. His good eye was fixed on his master.
‘We’ll have to think of something. After all, there cannot be too much in the life of a man like him. All we need to do is figure out what little latch will open his heart. What key will fit it, and how to turn it. Money failed, which means perhaps avarice is not the way. He’s a man, though, and a monk, so perhaps a suitable woman?’
Osbert shrugged. ‘I never understood the sort of men who would want to hide away in an abbey.’
‘No. You and I are two of a kind, Os. We prefer the reality of this world to dreaming of the next, eh?’
Osbert snorted as he busied himself about his mount. ‘What of the next world? So long as there’s time to say a Pater Noster, we’ll be allowed in anyway. Why live like a monk with no cods, when you can live like a king down here?’
‘Quite right. One thing, Os — the messenger had no other messages in his little pouch?’
‘Nothing I saw. I reckoned he had some verbal messages. Nothing much I could do about them, though. Basil killed him as soon as he could.’
‘Ah yes. My son,’ Sir Robert said. ‘And where is he?’
‘In Bow. There’s a girl there-’
‘I see. Which?’
‘The little black-haired one with the long legs. You know the one? Lives at the farm in the middle of the high street on the north side.’
‘I think I do, yes.’
The knight was plainly worried about his son’s tardiness. Osbert nodded as his master took his leave, and then set about removing saddle and bridle. There were plenty of ostlers and grooms, but this was no simple palfrey he had used; it was his own horse, and one thing he had learned in eighteen months of wandering the roads was that his own horse merited his own efforts. A horse was like any other tooclass="underline" if a man valued it, he would be rewarded by it.
While he brushed the sweat and dirt from his beast, Osbert was thinking again of the messages in the messenger’s pouch.
It was true that there was nothing directly relevant to him or to Sir Robert, but there had been the one little note in there. The cylinder had opened easily enough, and Osbert had been able to read it with ease, even with the mud all about. The message had said that a shipment of over one hundred pounds had been stolen from the abbey on its way to the king.
Osbert had stared at it expressionlessly while the other men stamped their feet and muttered about the God-damned cold, before he dropped the cylinder back into the leather pouch.
After all, there was no point hiding the robbery. All would know about it soon enough.
He was still there when there was a banging at the door, and some ribald shouts. Looking up, he saw a pair of horses appear in the gateway. One of the riders was a scrawny-looking fellow who might have been a lawyer from his appearance, but the other was very different: a slim, rather beautiful young woman with the haughtiness of a countess, who stuck her chin in the air and ignored the comments that washed about her.
Before long she had been helped from her mount, and willing hands guided her to the hall, where a maidservant came to meet her and took her inside.
It was nothing to Osbert. He continued with the long, regular strokes of his brush that he knew his horse most appreciated, until Sir Robert appeared beside him a while later, laughing and rubbing his hands in glee.
‘You seem happy, Sir Robert,’ Osbert noted.