No, Simon Puttock was no friend to him, but his daughter was no more Wattere’s enemy than was the Archbishop of Canterbury. She did not deserve this fate.
‘I will do what I can,’ he said with a firm nod of his head. Then he turned and fled before her tears of gratitude could melt his heart any more.
Road near Nymet Traci
Agnes was not sure about this hard-handed stranger. He looked too worn and battered. Of course, many travellers looked worse, but that was little consolation. This one looked like a man who would have little compunction in taking a woman for his own, and she would not allow that. No man would have her, she resolved.
He had swung her out into the road, and now he followed her, as nimble as before.
‘So you are a sailor, then,’ she said as he dropped lightly at her feet.
‘You know many sailors up here?’ he asked with some surprise.
‘We see them. Often they come past here as they walk from coast to coast.’
‘I can believe it,’ he said wryly. ‘But there are no jobs at either coast.’
‘Not even for you?’
‘Plainly you see more in me than the shipmasters of Devon,’ he said mildly. But already he was staring along the road in the direction the men had taken, back east. ‘Did you know any of those men?’
‘No. I’m not from near here. I live in-’
‘Jacobstowe. Yes — I know.’
‘You sound as though you know them, though.’
‘I saw them a few days ago. That one-eyed bastard in front? He was up the road from here, and I saw him kill a man.’
‘Who?’
‘Just some farmer,’ Roger said.
Agnes felt her face blanch. Her legs began to fail her, and she felt herself waver. ‘Who?’
‘Don’t know. Just some fellow on his way to market, I think.’
He realised her weakness, and quickly took her elbow, holding on to her until the spasm had passed.
‘Are you well, mistress? Do you want to sit?’
‘No, I am fine. But I want to see that one-eyed devil hanging.’
He nodded, as though this was the most natural desire of any woman. ‘Let’s see if we can tell where they were going. I think they must live not far away from here, for it was close by where I saw them kill the farmer.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nymet Traci
The yard was clear enough for now. All the castle’s men had repaired to the buttery with the ale they’d confiscated from the alewife transporting it to Bow, and already half the men were singing a series of bawdy songs. Their rough singing could be heard all about the courtyard, and the fact that they seemed already to be drunk was reassuring, but he couldn’t just jump on top of them all. That was impossible.
He stood indecisively for a while, outside the hall, listening to the raucous babble from inside. Up on the walls, he could see more men walking about. They weren’t drunk. And from a quick glance, it was clear that there were at least four of them up there, two at the front, and two chatting in the farther corner. Security today was not a major concern.
There had been times before when Wattere had felt incompetent. Most recently was earlier in the year when he had been told to evict a man, and shortly thereafter had found that the tables had been turned on him. And here he was, seriously contemplating making a lunatic bid to save that same man’s daughter. His wounds stung him with renewed vigour at the mere thought — and yet he was not persuaded to turn from the decision he had taken up there in Edith’s room.
‘You all right, old man?’
A youth of not yet twenty, he was. He had a face erupting with spots that gave him a humorous appearance, but any suggestion that he was prone to such an easy temperament was discounted by the unfeeling expression in his cold grey eyes. He was a little taller than Wattere, but although Wattere felt fairly sure that he could best the lad in a fight, he was not here to pick quarrels. Instead, he made a muttered response, ducked his head and walked over to the stables, where he went to his mount and checked the beast over. There was cause for bitterness there. The horse had not been brushed and cleaned from their last journey, and there was still dried mud clinging to his forelegs.
There was no excuse for not looking after a horse. It made him angry to see his own animal being ignored. But here he was in a strange castle. It would not be sensible to cause a fuss. Especially when he was trying to conceive a plan to help Edith escape. So he merely gritted his teeth, walked to the corner where the brushes were all stored, and grabbed a couple. While making long, regular sweeps over the horse’s back and flanks, he watched the activities in the yard.
He had no idea how to save the child. Perhaps she could simply hide from the guards, and later, when they had gone to find her, she could make her way … But there was nowhere to hide in that little chamber. Nowhere at all. It was impossible. There was nothing he could do here all alone to try to rescue her. It was just ridiculous to think that he could.
Rubbing down the mount, he allowed his thoughts to turn to the more sombre reflection that it was entirely due to his obedience to his master that she was here. Sir Hugh le Despenser had always been a good master to him, though. Reliable, in all ways. If a man betrayed him, he knew what he could expect, just as a man who provided good service for him knew that he would be rewarded. He had himself enjoyed Despenser’s favours over the years. And now he was here in a castle in the wildlands of western Devonshire with a beautiful young woman, having delivered her, so it would seem, to be toyed with by the son of a friend of Despenser. She would soon be raped or dead, if he was any judge.
He had performed similar tasks in the past, capturing women and men so that they could be held hostage, but never before had he known this kind of despair. In the past, they had been treated moderately well, and released when they had served their purpose. He wouldn’t have procured them had he known that they would be treated in the way that Edith would soon be.
A wave of nausea washed through his body like a cramp. He almost fell to the ground, and had to grab hold of the stall’s bars and breathe in deeply, cheeks hollowed and loose, his belly complaining, as he felt the threat of all the men about the place. This was lunacy! He couldn’t think to help her. If he did, and he was discovered, as he must be, he would be ruined. Despenser would never forgive him, even if he managed to escape, and he couldn’t. If he was to try to fight all the men here, he would die. But he couldn’t escape without silencing at least a number of them. It was impossible.
He had just come to this conclusion when he looked up to see Basil striding towards the hall’s door. As he reached it, he glanced up to the right, towards the part of the hall where Wattere knew Edith was being held.
It was enough to steel his resolve. ‘You bastard,’ he muttered. ‘You sodding bastard!’
He gripped his sword hilt and would have marched across the yard right there and then, perhaps to die, trying to protect her from her assailant, but then he saw two men up on the battlements and thought again.
If he ran in on Basil raping Edith, the only result would be his death. That wouldn’t help Edith at all. Better to persuade Basil to leave the hall.
Suddenly Wattere’s eyes narrowed as he cast about, looking around the stables. At one end was a heap of straw. It was enough to make him march purposefully along the stalls.
He would give Basil a diversion he would never forget.
When the door was thrown wide, Edith had not expected it.