Edgar looked at him blankly. He disliked leaving Baldwin unprotected. But as his master stepped out of the room and Edgar heard his steps echoing along the passage and out of the building, he shrugged. There could be little enough danger from the pretty widow, and what danger there was, Baldwin would be certain to enjoy.
14
A t the fairground, Jordan Lybbe bundled up the last of his goods and tossed them into his makeshift shed. Hankin leaned against the pole supporting the roof with his arms crossed. His work done for the day, he was finding it difficult to keep his eyes open, and Lybbe gave him a friendly clout over the shoulders. “Don’t worry, boy! You can soon shut your eyes and get some sleep. Stay in there tonight. When you wake up I’ll have your breakfast ready.”
He watched the lad affectionately. Hankin was only ten years old. Lybbe had saved him when his parents had died of a fever, over in Gascony. The town had been unwilling to take on an orphan, and it had been difficult for the English boy in a strange land with no friends. He had become like a son to the lonely Lybbe.
As Hankin went inside with the cloths and made himself a bed of rugs on the grass, Lybbe stood and breathed in the clear evening air.
A breeze flapped the pennants and flags, whipping away the thin gray coils of smoke from the fires out behind the ground where the tents and wagons stood. Fires might be illegal within the fairground itself, but men still needed to keep warm. The wind brought the tang of burning faggots with it, and hints of cooking, making Lybbe’s empty stomach rumble. Although it was chilly, it was a relief after the heat of the day. The coldness reminded the merchant of his youth here in the town.
He stood in the alleyway between the stalls and stared up at the heavens. The sky was a deep blue, with a thick sprinkling of stars shimmering and dancing high above. Lybbe was not given to contemplation, but when he saw those glittering specks, the thousands upon thousands of pin-pricks of light high overhead, he felt an awe and reverence for God.
Slowly he began to make his way toward the town. The fair was quiet now, but just beyond its ditch were small groups sitting at fires, warming their hands and chatting easily about the day’s business. At this time of evening, all the customers had gone and the only people remaining within the perimeter were the stallholders or their guards. After standing all day and shouting their wares, most were exhausted, and needed to rest their feet and throats. They drank from pots of ale or cider, talking in muted voices as they stared wearily at the flames, preparing for the night. Lybbe knew a few, and called out to them as he passed, feeling again the gratitude that among so many visitors he would be unlikely to be recognized, especially with his beard. He looked nothing like the youth who had been forced to leave after the murders.
At the entrance to the fairground he paused. Lybbe had expected to find Elias waiting, but the cook was nowhere to be seen. There was no hurry. Lybbe found a log to sit on in the darkness under a low eave and folded his arms contentedly.
Elias had been shocked to find Lybbe back in Tavistock. The last time they had met, Lybbe had been a fugitive, an outlaw, and Elias had given him food and a bed while they planned how to effect his escape-the only alternative was the rope. That had been almost twenty years ago now, and Lybbe had been surprised by the force of the emotion he had felt when he had once more entered his town, the place he had known as home.
Once he had got over his initial disbelief, Elias had been effusive in his welcome, insisting on purchasing ever more ale, but Lybbe had an aversion to drinking too much. He was nervous of talking too loudly or unwarily, and knew how ale could loosen tongues.
It had alarmed him when the watchmen had attacked him. He had assumed they were seeking him out for his crimes; it was only as they pounced that he realized they wanted to scare him after his refusal to submit to their extortion. In any case, Jordan Lybbe had a loathing for men who tried to coerce others into giving up their goods for no reason. He had put up with enough of that before, and wouldn’t accept it any more.
He found it worrying that Elias was late. After a separation of twenty years, he would have expected punctuality. There was so much still to talk about. Probably it was the horror of the previous night catching up with him, he thought.
Elias had been terrified. That was why Jordan had sent the cook away before he had swapped clothes with the man-and before he had hewn off the head. Elias wouldn’t have been able to cope with that. It couldn’t hurt the dead man, but it could protect him, Lybbe.
Hearing steps, he glanced quickly down the street, but it was a couple. Peering, he recognized one of the women who had witnessed the attack on him.
Baldwin did not know Lybbe, and had all his attention fixed on the woman at his side. Jeanne was giggling at a quip from him, and Lybbe smiled at their self-absorption. It was good to see two people so happy in each other’s company.
To the knight, the fair was not as impressive as one of the huge ones in London or Winchester, but it was not so daunting either. The fairs at Smithfield and St. Giles were massive, attracting so many people they were quite fearful to the country knight. He sought a quiet and restful life, and Tavistock was better suited to his tastes.
There were a few people still wandering among the little lanes and alleys, and Baldwin kept his sword-hand free. It had been drummed into him continually while undergoing his training that he should always be ready to defend himself and others who might need his aid, and with so many strangers in the town he felt a vague unease without his servant near to hand.
“You have never been married?” she asked.
“No. I spent my youth in Outremer, in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and then in Cyprus and Paris. I only returned to England four or five years ago when my brother died and left the estates to me. Before that I was without a lord or master of any sort-marriage was out of the question.”
“You could have married when you returned.”
“There has never been the time. As soon as I came back, I was asked to become the Keeper of the King’s Peace, and since then I have had little time to seek out a wife.”
She threw a quick look at him from the corner of her eye. The idea that this knight should have been so continually occupied that he had no time left to find a woman was preposterous. He was a knight; he could make time to do anything he wanted.
“It wasn’t only that, though,” he confessed, seeing her shrewd glance. “I am not a youthful knight, am I? Women expect young, chivalrous admirers, not hardened old warriors with few graces like me.”
She gave him a look of mock disgust. “Oh, Sir Knight, you’re right! You are so ancient and grizzled, how could any maid look upon you except with pity?”
“You see? Even you can’t treat me seriously,” he grumbled, but there was a vein of sadness in his expression which gave rise to a feeling of tenderness in her breast.
She tried to quash it as soon as she was aware of it, reminding herself that she did not need this man, and if he was still alone after so long, he must be dull indeed, but his loneliness touched her. “I am surprised you weren’t married when you were younger. Have you given up all hope of finding a wife?”
“It was not possible. At first there was the distraction of war, then the long process of recovery and at last the poverty of being a lordless outcast.”
Jeanne looked up at him. The starlight was kind to him, smoothing out the lines of pain and making him look younger. His hair gleamed in the gray light, giving him an air of quiet dignity, but there was suffering in his voice when he talked about his past. She couldn’t understand what made him so bitter, but she’d seen impoverished knights, as had everyone in Europe. All over Christendom there were knights who had lost their lords, whether from arguments, or because their masters had died, or for some other reason. Once they were without a home, they became wanderers, without income or patron, and with no source of food or even a bed. They were sad men, often proud and haughty beneath their dishevelled exterior, who had been struck down by a quirk of fate. Many resorted to villainy, robbing to live.