‘You may be assured that-’
‘No. I may not be assured of anything.’ The cardinal opened the first of the small scrolls and gazed at the contents. ‘It is his writing, I believe. Very well, Brother Robert. You may leave this with me.’
‘Am I safe?’
The cardinal looked at him. ‘I shall speak with Brother John, if that is what you mean. However, this is a matter that will require the pope’s intervention, I believe. You had best remain here at Tavistock.’
‘Thank you, Cardinal.’
Brother Robert was almost at the door when the cardinal’s quiet voice halted him. ‘One more thing, my friend. There will be no more money removed from the treasury. Nor plate nor gold. I hope that is understood. Because if any money goes missing, I shall not pursue your case with the pope or anyone else.’
‘I understand, Cardinal.’
‘Good,’ Cardinal de Fargis said. As the door quietly closed, he closed his eyes and offered a quick prayer for patience. ‘In Christ’s name, Father, if these men cannot live without each of them seeking the death of the other, what hope is there for peace within this community?’
But that was not the point. That a baron should seek to work for one man and could consider the murder of the other to aid his case was atrocious. There had not been a similar plot since the death of Becket. The pope must be told, and that quickly.
He sat and wrote his note carefully, the reed scratching on the parchment, but then, as he signed it with care, a thought struck him. It would take an age for the message to reach Rome.
Without hesitation, he began to write a new message, this time addressed to Sir Hugh le Despenser.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Bow
Simon sat back as Baldwin spoke. He felt as though his veins had been opened. It was as though the blood from his body was draining into a pool at his feet as Baldwin described the sudden arrest of Peter, the boy’s incarceration, and Edith’s disappearance.
‘But surely she could have gone to-’
‘She would only have gone to your home or back to Exeter,’ Baldwin said. ‘Unless you can think of somewhere else? But that does not explain how it was that a man saw her, and another in Crediton thought he saw her in the company of a man who looked like William atte Wattere.’
‘Sweet Jesus! This is all the work of that prick-eared cur. Christ’s ballocks, if I learn that Despenser’s had anything to do with this, I’ll have his cods on my knife in a week. Dear Christ, if she’s hurt …’
Baldwin put his hand out, only to have Simon knock it away as he bellowed, enraged. ‘That mother-swyving churl, the illegitimate son of a diseased sow, the god forsaken dunghill swine, the-’
This time Baldwin set his hand on his friend’s shoulder and gripped it hard. ‘Ranting will not help anyone. And at present we do not know that the man has anything to do with her capture. No! Rather than swearing and making oaths that must only raise the humours in your heart, use your head, man. What we need is a means of finding her, first, and then we must betake ourselves to think of a way of rescuing her.’
‘Baldwin, if there is even a hair of her head that is hurt by this prick, I’ll have his heart! I knew she shouldn’t have married that milksop youth, in Christ’s name. He was always too feeble.’
‘Simon, he is a boy. He was taken on the sheriff’s orders. What would you expect him to do against that kind of force? And once in gaol, he had no choice, no means to help his wife. Do not blame a victim for the actions of his persecutor.’
‘Perhaps you are right,’ Simon said, and then he bent his head and let his face fall into his open hands. ‘Poor Edith! Oh God, if someone’s raped her …’
‘If that was to happen, I would personally help you to take vengeance,’ Baldwin said.
Simon nodded, but suddenly he couldn’t trust his voice. The thought that his little girl could be held by some churl who might even now be defiling her was so hideously terrifying that he could not fully comprehend it. Instead his mind seemed to slow, and his breathing grew shallow, while his heart raced. It felt as though his body was packed with ice, and he shivered, even as his breath started to sob in his throat. It was not right! Surely his little Edith hadn’t been hurt. Wouldn’t he have felt it, wouldn’t he have known, if she had been molested? But he hadn’t known that she had been captured. Surely he should have done, if he were a good father? Shouldn’t a father’s relationship with his daughter mean that he would know as soon as she was alarmed, scared or in danger? It was the least a man should feel. And yet he was a failure in that as in so many things. Here he was, a useless bailiff without a bailiwick, searching for the killers of people he didn’t know, while his own daughter was the subject of capture and possibly molestation. He should have been there, at home, for her.
‘Don’t blame yourself, Bailiff,’ Coroner Richard said. He was at Simon’s side, his head lowered, glowering about them with a truculence that seemed entirely out of place for him. ‘It ain’t your fault some bastard’s done this.’
‘It is my fault,’ Simon said, sniffing hard. ‘If I’d-’
‘Nothing, my friend. If you had been there, all that might have happened was that you’d got yourself killed. That wouldn’t help anyone. And if someone else decides to break your peace by attacking your little girl, it ain’t your fault, it’s theirs. Don’t blame yourself.’
‘How did you know how I feel?’ Simon asked, looking at the coroner from the corner of his eye.
‘My wife was killed, remember? I told you. A miserable, lying cur of a felon whom I’d had working for me as steward and bottler took a liking to her, and when I was away, raped and killed her, before killing my dog too. Poor brute tried to protect her, but the bastard cut his throat. And I know exactly what you’re thinkin’. It’s what I was thinkin’ too. I blamed meself, and I didn’t think about anyone else. It was just my guilt I swam in. And it was stupid. Because I didn’t kill the hound, I didn’t kill my wife. It was him. All him. Hope he’s rotting in hell now, learning how hot it can be. But that’s not the point. Point is, life’s here to get on with. And to be fair, I waited until I’d killed him before I set about wallowin’. You, Bailiff, have a job to do. You have to find her, save her, and then kill the bastards who’ve done this.’
‘How do we do that?’ Simon asked. He stood up and stared about him. ‘Where would they have brought her?’
Baldwin chewed his inner lip. ‘They passed through Crediton. We do know that. We hope that they passed this way after Copplestone, but I have no means of confirming that.’
It was Edgar who sniffed and looked up at the sky. Clouds were forming south-west over the moors.
‘What is it, man?’ the coroner demanded.
‘We know that the sheriff is allied to Despenser. We know that Wattere is Despenser’s man. And we know that he was heading this way with her. Unless he acted on his own, I would think Wattere took his orders the same as always. That means Despenser took Edith, and would want her to be held somewhere safe, I’d imagine. Perhaps he seeks to blackmail the bailiff into some action that would not usually occur to him? While holding the bailiff’s daughter, he would have a powerful incentive for the bailiff’s compliance.’
‘You think so?’
‘If he was — excuse my bluntness, Bailiff — if he was intending merely to rape and slay the maid, he would do so without the risk of parading her through the county. We’d have found her yesterday in a ditch near Exeter. Instead he brought her all the way to Crediton and beyond. Surely that means he has some other objective for her than merely seeing her slain.’
Simon gaped suddenly and stared at the coroner. ‘Dear God, and we were told by Pasmere that Sir Robert of Nymet Traci was an ally of Despenser! She could be here.’
Nymet Traci
In her room, Edith huddled by her bed, shivering, her arms wrapped about her. It was less the cold that troubled her, more the continuing fear of what would happen. She should have made her escape on the way here. At the time, though, terror had controlled her, and the idea of trying to gallop away had been just too daunting. However, the result was that she was stuck here with all these men and now she was petrified that she might not escape. She had heard of plenty of women who had been kidnapped, and none had escaped rape — and some women had been forced to endure much worse.