‘How is she?’ Baldwin asked his wife.
‘She’ll be fine. She got quite warm when the room went up, of course, but she received few burns, mercifully, and the coughing should go soon. The main thing is, we have to get her to a house so that she doesn’t catch a chill.’
Baldwin glanced enquiringly at Daniel, who said: ‘There’s a farm not far from here. I’ll send a man to tell the farmer we’re on our way.’
The knight nodded and left the makeshift tent, walking slowly to the hill where Simon waited, standing guard over the two boys with Hugh.
‘How is she?’
‘She’ll live. But God knows if her mind will recover,’ Baldwin sighed.
‘She’ll be fine,’ said a voice behind him, and he spun around to face Thomas.
The master of the ruins waved a large jug. ‘I’d offer you some wine, gentlemen, but this is all I have remaining, and I think I’d like to enjoy what I can.’
‘You still have your life,’ said Baldwin.
‘My life? I depended on this,’ said the other, gesturing at the smoking remains, ‘to fund my business. Now, even if the land brings in fifteen or sixteen pounds a year, I am still left with nothing right now. I’m ruined. I’ll lose my house.’
‘Return down here and rebuild, then,’ said Simon. ‘It wouldn’t take long to put up a good-sized house; maybe not as large as your brother’s place, but enough to support you and a family.’
‘Here? Never!’ Thomas declared, staring about him scornfully. ‘What should I want with a place like this?’
Simon speculatively eyed the village nestling in the valley before them. ‘Well, nothing I can say will change your mind, of course, but there are many places around here where the owners of villages have set up markets and fairs; they take a good toll of all goods for sale, and make money from taxing the villagers for the rooms they rent out.’
‘Fairs! Markets!’ Thomas said scornfully. He sneered and sipped his wine, but slowly, and he glanced towards Throwleigh with a pensive frown. ‘Mind you, the roads here are quite good, aren’t they…?’
Chapter Thirty-Six
When it began to drizzle, Baldwin called Edgar to his side; between them, the two bullied and threatened the traumatised victims of the fire into some semblance of order, organising a stretcher for Lady Katharine, who appeared unable to think for herself; kicking James van Relenghes to his feet; setting Hugh and others to guard the two boys.
Anney stood weeping. She had been rescued from her cell by Edgar, but she seemed to have no will left. Baldwin was surprised to see Thomas’s man Nicholas go to her side and put his arm about her slim shoulders while he offered her comforting words. The knight was about to pull the man away, thinking he was merely trying to take advantage of the woman for his sexual gratification, when he saw how Anney reacted. She was gripping the man’s hand and leaning on his shoulder like a lover, and the confused knight was left with the distinct impression that Anney was greatly soothed by Nicholas’s presence.
He left her and went to make sure that the horses and cattle were being kept together before they could wander and be lost. Luckily Wat had recovered a little from his excesses of three or four hours before, and had been enlisted to assist the cattleman and stablehands. He saw his master, and waved cheerfully, preparing to set off with the animals to an enclosed field between the manor and the village.
All in all Baldwin was reasonably happy that things were as well as could be expected after such a disastrous day, and as the cavalcade began to make its way to the village to commandeer stables and buildings for all the people, he felt that all which could be done had been. He strode along the line to the front of the procession.
Seeing him, Jeanne glanced up at the door on which Lady Katharine lay, carried by four stalwarts from the stableyard. Jeanne had set out beside the stretcher thinking that she might be able to offer some companionship and help soothe the woman, but Lady Katharine was unable to speak coherently. She rambled, talking now as though her little son were at her side, now as if her husband were there; there was no sense to be had from her, and although Jeanne felt appalled for the lady, it was obvious that she served no useful purpose in being there, so she lifted her skirts and hurried to join her husband.
As they left the moors and followed the road down between tall trees on either side, he was talking quietly to Simon; behind them walked Alan and Jordan, heads hanging low, hands loosely bound and attached to a long thong onto which Hugh grimly held.
‘What will happen to them?’ she asked softly.
‘That will be in the hands of Sir Reginald of Hatherleigh,’ Baldwin replied. ‘He may take them into his own household where he can keep an eye on them, but it’s more likely he’ll send them to a decent monastery, one where they can be taught how evil their act was. They’ll need to pay a severe price for their crime, but at least they won’t be hanged. They are saved that by virtue of their age.’
‘You are sure it was them?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘I mean, what with Anney claiming she’d done it, and then there’s the priest as well…’
‘Stephen?’ Baldwin asked, and grinned. ‘No, that daft bugger didn’t lie. I think he even admitted his bad behaviour to Thomas – maybe he thought Thomas would keep him on if the priest showed he had the same sensibilities, those of a rake. No, Stephen only had the one sin to worry him: his behaviour with Petronilla. I should have realised it before, especially since I managed to offend him so much when I spoke to him in the chapel… but it’s so easy to think the worst of someone like him. He looks so effeminate, so thin and womanly; I thought that the first time I saw him, and because I didn’t want to be prejudiced, I refused to see any bad in him. That was stupid, and not a mistake I shall make again.’
‘But he used to beat the boys so badly.’
‘Yes, I am afraid that some men will; but a beating never made a child turn into a murderer, any more than it made the man who performed it become some sort of monster. I was beaten when I was young, and it never affected me; nor did my father turn into an ogre because he clouted me when I misbehaved.’
‘That’s fair enough, but what of Anney?’
‘Anney, I think, realised before any of us who was responsible for Herbert’s death. She is no fool, that woman; although she wanted to make quite sure that she wasn’t wrong, and waited until the last possible moment, I think she knew that her boy was involved. Of course, it could have been a woman…’
‘What makes you say that?’ she asked.
Baldwin smiled. ‘It was one of the first things I found puzzling when Thomas suggested that Edmund had been the murderer: a farmer like him, even one who looks fairly unfit and badly nourished, can lift much greater weights than a light boy like Herbert. If Edmund had killed Herbert, he’d have thrown the lad over his shoulder and carried him to the road; in the same way, the priest would have been able to pick up Herbert’s corpse – if Petronilla had been an accomplice, so much the better, and easier, for him. But the body was dragged. That meant it had surely to be someone who was not strong -either a particularly feeble man, a light-framed woman – or perhaps a child.’
‘Then why didn’t you arrest them immediately?’
‘Because all these things occur to me now I can look at the case retrospectively, but it’s only when the whole matter is tied up and complete that I realise how each individual aspect relates.’
‘And it was hard to believe that children could have been responsible,’ said Simon soberly.
‘True,’ said Baldwin. ‘It was the last thing I expected. I came to this matter with a conviction that I was myself culpable for not seeing Herbert’s danger, and I burned with the desire to see him avenged, but having seen one innocent child harmed, I didn’t want to believe that another boy could have been responsible.’