‘We have to find him, you know that?’ Simon said. ‘We will find him and catch him if we may, but if he refuses to surrender to us, we’ll have to take him any way we can.’
‘He is not my son any more,’ Pasmere said.
‘Where did he go?’ Simon asked.
Pasmere remained staring at him. He could not speak at first. Then, ‘If you had a son as old as mine, would you be able to betray him? Ever?’
Simon shook his head. He gave Pasmere his hand.
It was then that Roger returned from behind the house. ‘Sir Baldwin? I think I have found his tracks.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
Hoppon’s house
Tab was as alert as ever, Hoppon saw.
At first he thought it might be the men returning from Pasmere’s place, but then he heard the squeaking of an axle, and realised that it was not coming from the road they had taken, but instead from the ancient road further to the north of him.
It was enough to make him frown. There were all kinds of stories about that old road: how in years past some army had swept down and through this part of the country, leaving behind roads and forts. But they were daft old legends so far as Hoppon was concerned. The idea that some race of giants had lived here was more likely true. Still, the road was real enough. He had dug around up there once when he was younger, and a short way down under the grasses he had found a solid, paved roadway. When he looked east, it stretched for miles, probably as far as Crediton. Now that would have been a magnificent task, building a road all the way up there. Not that anyone used it any more. They all stuck to the muddier routes because they were more gentle in the way that they flowed around hills rather than taking a direct line straight up and over them. It was easier for people with heavy carts or packhorses.
But there were some few who knew the old roadways and used them. Sometimes, when he had been younger, Hoppon himself had been known to make use of them. They were appallingly overgrown in places, it was true, but they were still the best for those who knew of them, when there was wheeled transport to consider. Especially when the wheeled transport was something best kept from public view. And a man who was trying to evade the king’s officers would be well advised to make use of such a secret route.
Hoppon listened as the noise grew closer. Tab began to rumble deep in his throat, and he put his hand gently over the dog’s muzzle. ‘Be still, boy! No need for that. Let him be.’
He listened, and the noise slowed slightly. That would be where the incline rose towards the top of the hill towards Jacobstowe. If he was right, and this was Osbert, why was the man heading in this direction? It would surely have made more sense for him to go east, towards Crediton and Exeter, rather than here, towards the scene of his crime.
Hoppon listened wonderingly, as the sounds began to dim again, but then he pulled a bitter face and grimaced as he pulled himself upwards once more. ‘Ach, come on, Tab. Can’t let him just run like that. What’ll happen if he escapes? He’ll only find some other poor bugger to kill and rob, and then where’d we be? Guilty as hell, that’s where, for allowing him to run and kill again. He might be a neighbour, but he’s still an evil bastard. Can’t have him escaping.’
Roman road
Simon was remounted almost before Roger had finished speaking. He slapped the rein ends against his beast’s rump and was already moving even as Pasmere called, ‘Don’t hurt my boy! Please, don’t hurt him!’
It was a plaintive call that Simon would remember in his dreams for many months to come.
Roger was running to keep up. He took them to the back of the house where the barrow had been stored, and pointed out where the line in the dirt and grass showed the wheels’ passage. There was nothing to discuss. The last desperate plea from Pasmere was proof enough that Osbert had come this way, and the four men began to make their cautious way forward.
Simon hated entering thick woods like these when there was a risk of ambush. He had not been overly concerned back at Abbeyford after that attack, for the inquest itself had already been conducted, and none of the perpetrators was likely to have been there still. Whereas here there was the distinct possibility that Osbert was still close by. The only thing that was assured was that if he was pushing an old barrow, he would likely be too tired to think about pursuit. He was probably content to think that the attack on the castle was an end to the matter from his point of view. Simon knew that all too often criminals displayed astonishing foolishness after an initial success. It was as though their early achievements led them to believe that they were safe from all further dangers.
But this man had displayed great cunning and skill so far. And he was no invalid, for all that his wound must almost have killed him when it was inflicted. Not many would survive such a blow, Simon knew.
The woods here for the most part were oak and beech with the occasional great elm towering over all else. There was no sign of Osbert, and increasingly they found there was no sign of the barrow tracks either. Here, in the freshly fallen leaves, there was little to show where it could have gone. And that meant that a resolute man could easily have placed himself up in a tree nearby after doubling back, and if he had a bow …
There was no point worrying about such matters. No. Better to ride on, and hope that the man would find it hard to pick a target. They continued, Simon aware at all times of the sound of his own breathing, the rasping quality in the cool air. It made him feel like an old man. Never before had he experienced this kind of strange harshness in his lungs. It was almost as though they had turned to stone, and it made him light headed. ‘Where is he going?’ he muttered to himself.
Baldwin overheard his words, and although he was not certain Simon wanted to hear from him, he thought it could do no harm to respond. ‘Up ahead is the road from Jacobstowe to Bow. I suppose he may be heading for that.’
‘Why, though?’ Simon wondered. ‘The faster route, and the safer one, would have been the road to Bow from his father’s home.’
‘That would have taken him back to Nymet Traci, and I doubt he’d have wanted that,’ Baldwin pointed out.
‘And if he passed by there, he’d be going nearer to Bow,’ Roger grunted, ducking to avoid a heavy branch. ‘He wouldn’t want that either.’
Simon nodded, but he was unconvinced, and when they reached a clearing, he knew he had been right to question the man’s direction. ‘He’s collected something from here,’ he said. ‘The tracks are much easier to see now. They cut into the leaves and mud. The barrow is a lot heavier.’
‘The money,’ Baldwin guessed.
‘So I would think,’ Simon agreed. He was about to ride on when he caught a smell. ‘What is that?’
‘It’s dead, whatever it may be,’ Sir Richard said cheerily.
Simon saw the hillock in the leaves and pointed silently. It was Baldwin who let himself down from his horse and pushed the leaves apart. ‘A man, undressed, and somewhat the worse for his neighbours in the soil,’ he said.
The sight was repellent, and Simon was forced to turn away as his stomach rebelled. ‘He has a tonsure?’
‘Yes. This must be the errant monk — Brother Anselm,’ Baldwin said.
Simon nodded. Looking ahead, it was hard to see precisely where the tracks led, but he kicked his mount forward and they all moved on, Baldwin on foot now, his eyes scanning the ground about them. ‘Look! He turned west here.’
It was a strange place, this. As Simon’s horse reached the point where the track turned off, the sound of his horse’s hoofs grew markedly louder. It was not the trees, for they all looked much the same as before. And it was not some echo, but a louder, ringing sound. It made Simon think that the ground beneath was more substantial than the soft forest floor. There was another thing, too: the trees that grew here were sparser up ahead, as though there was a distinct line of soil that was harsher for plants. And then he found an old trunk of a tree that had pushed its way up through the soil. It had been constricted, the bole more bulbous above the ground than below, and all at once Simon saw why. As it reached up, the tree had dislodged some obstructions: dressed stone.