‘Come on, Edmund – out. You’re free.’
He gaped at them while Anney gave him a mocking smile. ‘What, Ed, you want to stay here in my place?’
“Your place?‘
Edgar sighed irritably. ‘This woman has confessed to killing Herbert. That means you are released, all right? If you wish, I can lock you back in here, but if I do, I won’t be in a hurry to let you out next time. Come on! Out!’‘
Edmund stumbled forward, but as he passed Anney, he stopped and stared. He couldn’t understand it. She hadn’t been there on the moor, she’d just set out on the road as he approached the manor.
‘Go on, fool! Anney said quietly. Get out while you still can!’
He walked slowly and feebly through the sunlight. The yard was filled with noise. A cart had arrived and butts of fresh and salted fish were being unloaded and dropped onto the paved court before being rolled noisily to the storage sheds near his cell. Horses trotted past, their shoes ringing loudly on the stone, men marched with a regular snapping sound as their leather soles struck the ground, and all around people shouted, sang, or whistled as they got on with the day’s work.
It was disorientating, and suddenly the man couldn’t go any further. He stood in the midst of the bustle and stared about him with an almost panicked air.
Edgar saw his perplexity, and although he didn’t know what caused it, he knew a spell in a gaol could be disorientating. He took the farmer’s arm, and gently led him up to the hall. ‘Come along. We’ll get you a quart of strong ale before you go home. You need some form of compensation for your stay in the cell.’
Edmund obediently followed where Edgar took him, although at the door to the hall, he stopped, and stared at Edgar with a witless fear in his eyes.
Edgar smiled reassuringly, although he was rapidly becoming impatient, and helped the farmer through the door and into the buttery.
‘Oh, no!’ Edgar said despairingly. Draped over one of the smaller barrels he saw Wat. Nearby was Alan, who snored quietly on the floor, a broken pot at his side; Jordan lay near the wall, a beatific smile on his face.
Edgar walked in and kicked the cattleman’s boy. Wat gave a short, hiccuping cry, flailed at the air, and disappeared over the other side of the barrel. Alan instantly snapped awake with a snort and a shake of his head. Jordan remained blissfully asleep.
‘Up, Wat! And find me some good ale, if you don’t want a cuff round your head!’
‘Ow, that hurt,’ said the boy, reappearing rubbing at his head. He burped and sulkily fetched a jug, filling it from the butt he had been sleeping on.
Edgar shook his head in disgust, passed the jug to Edmund and led Wat from the room. Once outside, he took Wat by the sideburn and pulled up, twisting it, until the boy was on his tiptoes. ‘You are not to enter that room again, understood? I can’t trust you, and I won’t have you embarrassing your master with your drunkenness. You won’t go inside the buttery again while we are here.’
‘Oh – ow! All right, sir, I won’t go in there.’
‘Now get into the hall and wait!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And take your drunken friends with you.’
So saying, Edgar hauled Alan to his feet and shoved him out, and then went to Jordan and pulled the semi-comatose lad up. Jordan opened his eyes Wearily and smiled inanely at his father. ‘You’re free!’ he blurted, and hiccuped.
Edgar thought Edmund looked like an ox patiently waiting for the goad. He stood quietly, apparently oblivious to the presence of his son. His imprisonment, even for so short a time, had affected him badly, and now he shuffled slowly and aimlessly gazed about him like a dazed old man with fuddled wits.
Jordan belched winey fumes in Edgar’s face, and the servant winced in disgust. He thrust the boy towards Wat and Alan, who each took an arm and half-carried, half-dragged their friend to the hall. Meanwhile Edgar refilled Edmund’s jug and asked the farmer to follow him again.
Jordan blinked and gazed about him with the dull-witted slowness of an old man. After the relative gloom of the buttery, this hall, with its sconces and candles and roaring fire, was almost painful on his eyes. All he wanted to do was sit next to his dad in a dimly-lit corner and doze again, but he daren’t. Not with the people in here.
Baldwin had returned, and now sat next to the fire with his wife, holding her hand. His friend Simon was standing in front of the fire, and his face was gloomy, like Baldwin’s, although he looked positively cheerful compared with Thomas, the new master. He sat by himself, avoiding everybody.
Daniel wasn’t about, which was some relief. Jordan knew that the steward wielded vast power, and he was always scared of him. He was also secretly glad to see that the mistress was nowhere to be seen. Then he went cold as he saw Petronilla sitting on a bench, her face held in her hands, and Stephen behind her, his hand on her shoulder.
Wat quietly walked with his charges over to a bench and all three sat just as Edgar and the farmer entered.
Baldwin glanced up; Jordan thought he looked exhausted. It was odd to see a rich man showing that kind of fatigue. Usually it was only their staff who looked tired, at least in Jordan’s experience. While the peasants all toiled and slaved to keep the lands fruitful and the storerooms filled, Squire Roger for instance had spent his time in pleasurable pursuits: hunting, riding, playing with his weapons.
But Jordan’s attention was soon diverted to his father. Edmund stumbled in like an old man. His face was pale and drawn, as though he had been incarcerated for years, and Jordan felt the drunkenness fall away as his fear rose. He didn’t realise his father was freed; to the boy it looked as if the knight and bailiff were about to pronounce sentence upon him.
The knight glanced up. ‘Ah, Edmund, please come here, near the fire. You must be cold.’ He watched as the farmer slowly shuffled forwards and held his hands out to the flames. ‘Edmund, I am sorry that you have been so ill-served,’ he continued. ‘I can only hope that in future your life will become easier.’
It was at this moment that Daniel appeared in the doorway. At his side was a thin, smiling, ruddy-faced man, with a face much scarred by the pox, who glanced about him with a casual interest.
‘Sir Baldwin,’ Daniel said. ‘You wanted to speak to the fishcarter.’
‘You are the carter who was here on the day that Master Herbert died?’ Baldwin asked.
‘Yes, sir. I was here that day’
‘You know that the boy was killed and his body dumped on the road. Did you see him?’
The carter gave him a pitying look. ‘Sir, if I’d seen the lad lying hurt or dead I’d have put him on my cart and brought him back here. I have a boy his age myself, and wouldn’t expect a man to leave my boy in the road.’
‘Did you see anyone else that day?’ Simon asked.
‘Him, sir,’ he said, pointing at Edmund. ‘He was on his cart riding over here, although he was some ways back. I saw two gentlemen on horses, out near the stream – oh, and Anney, of course.’
‘Where was she – up on the hill?’
He glanced at the bailiff. ‘On the hill? No, she was on the road, some way from the house here.’
Baldwin’s head snapped around, and his face had lost its dark scowl. He peered closely at the fishmonger. ‘Are you quite sure? We thought that by the time you passed along the road, she must already have left the track to go up the hill.’
‘I don’t know about that, sir – all I can say is, she was on the road, and I passed her within a few minutes of leaving the manor. Just after that I started to drop down the hill and saw the two gentlemen on their horses at the bottom. I passed by them, and a little way on I saw Thomas here, and his man.’