“Yes… It was strange, that. She was very defensive…‘
Simon gave a short laugh. “Not that strange! She’s young, so’s he. He’s good looking, so’s she. I don’t think you need look further for a reason than that.”
“Possibly.” Baldwin mused for a moment. “Let’s see this friend of his – what was his name? Oh, yes, de la Forte. Let’s see what else he can tell us.”
Quickening their pace, they rode off to the inn to ask for directions. It seemed that the de la Forte house was on the way to Exeter, some three miles outside Wefford, so they turned their horses to the south and were soon there.
As they approached the property, Simon could not help letting a small whistle of approval pass his lips. “The de la Fortes seem well enough off,” he said.
Baldwin nodded. The house was a large and rambling place, quite long, with a number of stables and outbuildings. In size it was bigger than his own manor, with the roof probably higher. The whitewash was fresh and clean, making the house almost seem to rise from the snowy ground in front as if it was made of the same material. Above, a thick mass of thatch was visible only from the chimney rising high overhead: around it the snow had melted, showing the greying straw beneath.
The roadway passed close to the front of the house, which itself lay in a shallow dip, while between the building and the trail was a stream, cutting a neat and precise line through the snow. As they followed the track to the house, they slowed, moving at a walk through the ford at the little stream’s shallowest point before trotting up to the door.
Here the house had two stubby arms projecting forwards like horns from a cow’s head, and the door was in a yard formed between. There was a hitching rail, to which they tied their mounts before Simon knocked loudly at the door, while Baldwin tied up the dog with some twine he found dangling from the rail. He did not want his new dog to fight with the de la Fortes‘. They did not have long to wait.
An elderly servant, a thin, gaunt man with an expression of intense trepidation, opened the door and peered out at them. Trying his most winning smile, Simon nodded to him. Ts Stephen de la Forte here?“
“I…‘ As he began to speak, there was a bellow from behind, and the servant spun round, quickly explaining to someone inside. ”No, sir. No, I don’t know who it is. He’s asking for Master Stephen, sir.“
“Out of the way!” came the voice, and the servant disappeared, his face replaced with that of an older man.
Simon felt he must be middle-aged from the thick and grizzled hair. Stout, not fat but thick in body, he stood a little shorter than the bailiff, but was almost half as wide again at the shoulder. He had a massive barrel chest, with arms that would have looked well as tree trunks, they were so massive.
His face was a maze of creases, some of them so deep that they appeared to be separate flaps of skin roughly butted together and sewn, and among them Simon could see the lighter marks, thickened with age, of old wounds from knives or swords. In the midst was a mouth, itself a colourless gash. A thick and broken nose sat between two bright and intelligent eyes, blue-grey like his son’s, which stared unblinking at Simon.
“Well? Who are you and what do you want with my son?” he said, his voice harsh with distrust.
“You are de la Forte? Father to Stephen?” Simon heard the knight ask softly from behind.
“Yes. Who are you?”
Baldwin slowly paced forward until he was beside the bailiff and stared back unblinking. “I am Sir Baldwin de Furnshill,” he said, announcing his title with careless pride. “I am Keeper of the King’s Peace here, and my business is with your son, not with you. You will bring him here to me. Now.”
Initially, Simon felt sure that de la Forte was going to explode like a child’s firework. His face appeared to become suffused with blood until the veins stood out at his temples and neck. His eyes seemed to want to start from their sockets, as if they could themselves leap out and attack the knight. But as quickly as his rage appeared, it passed. After a moment’s thought, he stood aside, albeit with bad grace, to let his visitors enter.
“My apologies, sir, I did not realise who you were. Please, come inside and seat yourselves by my fire while I fetch him out for you.”
“Thank you!” said Baldwin graciously as he swept inside.
This was no rude hovel. The screens gave into a broad and airy hall, with a huge fireplace built into one long side. Richly coloured tapestries hung from the walls, with narrow-looking gaps where sconces lay to brighten the interior. Two large candle-holders in wrought-iron stood before the fire, shedding pools of light. A massive table built from thick oak timbers stood at the opposite end of the room, while a bench from it had been dragged to the heat, leaving the earth bare in two great sweeps where the rushes had been dragged apart by the bench legs. A chair and small writing table stood near the hearth, and a man, dressed like a monk in a habit, stood nearby.
“My clerk,” said their host dismissively before walking to a chair and sitting, shouting at his servant to ‘Fetch him out!“
“You have a very pleasant house,” said Simon tentatively, watching the clerk clearing his papers and hurrying from the room.
“Yes. It took many years to build, but now it is as we want it. I only hope,” his face became sour, “we can make enough profit to keep it.”
“To keep it? Why, what’s the difficulty?”
“The Genoese, they’re the problem!” he said, a sneer curling his lip. “The whore-sons want my money.”
The knight turned and watched impassively as the man carried on. “I have been a successful merchant for many years, with my partner, Alan Trevellyn, and now these Italians -‘ He spat the word. ”-want us to pay them back the loans we have with them. It’s madness! They know we can’t. They just want to bankrupt us, that’s all.“
“Why would they want to do that?” asked Simon reasonably.
The grey eyes fixed on him. “Why? So that their own people can take over the trade from us, of course!”
“My friend has had little experience of trade. Perhaps you could explain for him,” said Baldwin suavely, and Simon threw him a look of sour distaste. To his knowledge, his grasp of trade was as good as any man’s.
“Alan Trevellyn and I hire ships and use them to bring wine over here from Gascony. We’ve been doing it for years. Going the other way we take what we can, wool mainly. When the ships arrive, they sell the cargo and use the money to buy the wine to bring back. We’ve been very successful over the years, but for the last two we’ve been unlucky. The pirates have caught our last two ships, and wiped out the profits from the previous ten. The profit is too low now, with the high costs since the harvests. So now the Italians want back the money they loaned us some time ago. What it means is, they want everything. It could mean losing our houses… Everything!”
They sat for some minutes in silence, and just as Simon opened his mouth to inquire about the consequences should he refuse to pay, they heard the sound of approaching feet, and through the curtain to the screens came the boy they had seen earlier, with a thin, mousy-looking woman who had enough similarity with Stephen to look like his mother. She stood just inside the doorway, darting little glances at each of the men, while her son strode in, boldly enough to Simon’s eye, although his face held a curious expression. It was almost petulant annoyance, as if he were close to anger that the knight and bailiff should dare to invade his father’s household.
He moved directly to a chair and sat, his pale features turned to the knight. “Well?” he asked, impatiently.
Baldwin sat quietly contemplating him. Then he sighed.
“Your friend will not talk to us. It’s as if he wanted to be convicted. I am not happy that he did it, though, and I want to be sure that I have the right man. So tell me, why do you think Greencliff ran away last night?”