Executing the felon in full view of travellers on the way to St Giles’s Fair could lead to an unreasonable attack on her. Others might not realise the depth of Philip Dyne’s crimes. They might disbelieve her, or take his side and protect him, perhaps killing her if she attacked him. Matilda was only a woman. If she were to stab Dyne, she could be overwhelmed or run through as a madwoman – possibly before she’d killed Dyne.
She wanted him dead: she craved justice for Joan. But for that her blow must have a chance of success.
Fleetingly she wondered where her husband could have gone, and then she realised that Andrew and Nicholas must be setting a trap for Dyne further along the road. They were good men, her husband and brother. They wouldn’t feebly moan and complain about Dyne escaping. She was unfair to accuse them of such a thing. No, they were here to ensure Dyne’s execution for his sins. They would see to him.
But how could they? They had left the rapist here alone, riding off at speed. What if he were to leave the roadway and bolt? Matilda Carter gritted her teeth. He would not get away. She swore by Holy Mother Mary that she would shadow the lad and make sure he couldn’t escape.
When he stood, shakily wiping at his face with a sleeve, Matilda took her horse’s reins and pulled the mare after her, resolutely trailing the weeping penitent as he continued on his way south.
On foot she walked after him, growing tired now but filled with bitterness and the angry determination to see Philip Dyne dead.
Chapter Six
They set off to St Giles’s Fair early the next morning. Baldwin did not enjoy going to town, but once he knew he must endure an unpleasant duty, he was resolved to begin it as soon as possible. Today he looked upon the journey as a useful distraction from his sadness.
Their retinue was as small as he could make it. There was no point in dragging half his servants with him, not on a political visit like this – although it was a fine balancing act knowing how many to bring. If Baldwin brought a large entourage it might make him appear too rich, as though he was trying to score points off other knights; too few people with him and Lord Hugh de Courtenay could feel that there was some slight intended: that his lordship didn’t warrant a show of respect. On the other hand, the harvest would soon be ready, and for that the manor needed every spare hand. Baldwin had no intention of denuding his demesne of men.
Jeanne knew all this, but she was concerned that he could have brought too few with him. He had only his servant, Edgar, the cattleman’s son, Wat, and Jeanne had brought her maid, Petronilla. Petronilla had given birth only a month before and baby Stephen was proving to be a handful; Petronilla had grown pale and apathetic, yawning and dozing whenever she might. Her obvious exhaustion made Jeanne wonder how she herself might cope with childbirth.
Usually a child was welcomed wholeheartedly into a household but Stephen had caused no little complaint among the other servants. All slept communally in Baldwin’s hall and when the child was being difficult, demanding his mother in the darkest hours of the night, Jeanne knew that others dreamed black thoughts of smothering babies. Edgar had been heard to wonder aloud why Herod had never been canonised.
At least now he was sleeping, rocked gently in the wagon, lying among the gifts which Baldwin and Jeanne had brought for Lord Hugh de Courtenay, and while he slept Petronilla had regained much of her animation. She was fairskinned and blonde, and incarceration indoors had made her pale, but the walk had already put roses in her cheeks, making her look much younger. Wat’s hand was in hers as she pointed out flowers, birds or animals, a habit which Wat, who had fallen in love with Petronilla when he first met her in Throwleigh, scorned. At his age – about fourteen; no one was quite sure, least of all his father – he was almost old enough to marry, and the scowl on his face demonstrated his belief that inconsequential chats about flowers and blackbirds were demeaning.
Trying not to grin to herself as she caught sight of his expression, Jeanne glanced at her husband.
Baldwin had been dreadfully saddened by the death of his dog. Uther had been an uncomfortable companion, as much as Jeanne liked dogs, because his habits of slobbering over those whom he adored, of farting beneath the table at mealtimes, of resting his head in a lap and dribbling, tended to make some people fractious about him. And the more unpopular he felt, the more poor Uther tried to endear himself, usually with disastrous consequences, like the time he knocked Baldwin over in his enthusiasm to welcome the knight home after an extended absence of less than an hour.
But there was no denying that the beast had adored Baldwin, nor that he had reciprocated Uther’s affection. Even when the dog died biting on Baldwin’s arm, Baldwin hadn’t complained. His forearm was a mass of scabs where Uther’s teeth had sunk in, and Jeanne had seen her man touch the scabs every so often, as if reminding himself of his hound’s death. Although Baldwin smiled as often as before, it was clear to Jeanne that he felt the hound’s death keenly. She had suggested another dog, but he had smiled sadly and shaken his head. No replacement would be able to fill the space left by Uther. Perhaps in a year or so.
Jeanne sighed, but she was not used to inaction. She was sure that her husband needed another dog to bring him out of his odd, quiet mood, and she would find him one. Perhaps a pleasing little pet-dog, something small enough to sit on his lap? Some knights thought them the height of fashion, so she had heard. It made for a wonderful companion, something so small and cuddly.
The word cuddly brought to her mind a vision of Uther’s head, massive, dark-jowled, sombre, panting, with a long dribble of slime forever dangling. Shuddering slightly, she decided to act. Maybe there would be something suitable in Tiverton.
Tiverton. It was an odd-sounding place. Although Jeanne had lived in Furnshill for some months now, she had never made the journey north: there had never been the need. Crediton held all that they needed in terms of those foodstuffs they couldn’t grow themselves, and if there was anything else they required, they tended to send to Exeter. That great port could provide anything that was available in the world and there was little point in going elsewhere.
Being a Devon-born woman, Jeanne had been raised in the county, but she had been adopted by her uncle and taken to live with him in Bordeaux when her parents were murdered by a gang of trail bastons. Many such outlaws had killed, raped and thieved their way through the country over the last twenty years and Jeanne had been lucky to escape with her life. The axe-blow intended to kill her had glanced off. She still had a dent in her skull where it struck.
Jeanne had learned much about gracious living in Bordeaux, but her first husband, Sir Ralph de Liddinstone, was a rough, heavy-handed bully, who had lost all affection for her when she proved unable to conceive a child for him. He had beaten her whenever he was drunk, and when he died some three years before, his passing had been a source of real relief to Jeanne. And then she had met Sir Baldwin de Furnshill.
Where her first husband had been hot-headed, untutored and ill-mannered, Baldwin was calm, educated and courteous to a fault. When it came to their bedchamber he had been almost embarrassingly respectful, a condition which Jeanne had not been prepared to allow to continue, for not only did she long for a child, she knew that Baldwin did as well. She had seen his tenderness towards Petronilla’s, even though the poor baby was illegitimate.
It was as she was contemplating the possibility of a baby of her own that she realised that they had almost reached the town. It was clear above the trees lining the far riverbank ahead and she surveyed it with interest.