Wat glanced about him. ‘Here in the yard, sir. They said you’d hit them and they wanted their revenge; said they’d kill both of you, Sir Baldwin.’
Simon glanced at Baldwin. ‘They said we’d hit them? That must mean they were talking after the ambush. They intend to kill us.’
‘So it would seem. Did you see them, Wat?’
‘Yes. They are men from the castle here. I don’t know whose.’
Baldwin and Simon exchanged a look. The knight was the first to speak. ‘Can you see them now?’
‘No, sir. I think they went back to the buttery.’
‘We’d better wait until Edgar returns so at least we’ve got his protection at our backs,’ Simon recommended.
‘That is all very well, but if we wait here, this is where the danger lies; if we go to the Fair to find Edgar, we could be ambushed again – this time successfully. We may just as well go out to…’ Baldwin noticed a groom listening with interest and lowered his voice. ‘To where we were going.’
Simon saw his look and motioned to the groom. ‘Piss off! Don’t listen to the conversations of your betters.’
‘Betters?’ the man enquired as if with genuine doubt. As Simon’s face reddened angrily he laughed and strolled away.
‘Arrogant swine!’ Simon muttered.
‘Forget him. As I say, we may as well go.’
‘Very well, but leave a message with Wat here.’
‘Good idea. Wat, you will wait here to see Lady Jeanne and when she returns with Edgar, you will tell them what you just told us and let them know that we are going to Templeton.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you will watch the gate after we’ve gone. If anyone seems to try to follow us, you will tell Edgar who they were and how many.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. Come then, Simon,’ Baldwin said and walked out into the sunlight with his horse. He hesitated, passed his reins to Simon, then darted back into the stable. When he returned, he was slipping a necklace over his neck – Sir Gilbert’s crucifix and key.
They mounted and clattered under the gateway. Aylmer rose and followed them. Baldwin noticed the dog when they reached Tiverton’s timber bridge, where they asked a man for the best way to reach Templeton. He pointed them to a road heading almost due west. It was too late to take the dog back to the castle and he loped along beside them as they rode.
Matilda sat composedly while Clarice combed and brushed her long hair. In the mirror she could see that her long tresses had become quite grey and straggly. Rose, she noticed, avoided her eye. ‘Are you well, Clarice?’
The sharpness in her tone made her maid start. ‘Yes, Lady.’
‘Then why do you look so miserable?’
‘It is nothing.’
‘It was all true, wasn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘What those two sluts said. Has he been bedding you too? How often?’
‘I’m too old now.’
With an inward shiver Matilda saw the pained sadness in Clarice’s face. ‘He used to take you before?’
‘When I was younger. What could I do to refuse him? He was my master.’
‘When did he start with Joan?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Liar! It’s all over your face that you know.’
‘I think Felicity told the truth.’
‘You mean…’ It was hard for her to breathe for a moment. Her heart was pounding deafeningly in her ears as Matilda swallowed. ‘Tell me the truth. You think he began raping my daughter as soon as he threw Felicity out?’
‘Yes.’
‘Leave me.’
Once Clarice had gone, Matilda rose unsteadily. She put her hand to her face and walked to the wall opposite her window where she had a small cross hanging. ‘Please, God, don’t let this be true,’ she begged, but she knew there was nothing He could do to alter the hideous facts.
She went to the small chest in which her daughter’s few belongings had been stored and pulled out a tunic, then a robe and cloak. The things Joan had worn on her last day. They were the best clothes she possessed, selected carefully to impress the man she loved. Matilda laid them out on her bed and smoothed them, weeping. Then she threw herself on the bed and gave herself up to her overwhelming grief.
Toker was leaning against a house outside the castle near the gate when Lady Jeanne, Petronilla and Edgar returned to the castle’s court. He had a small knife in his hand and was carving at a piece of leather as he waited. As people approached the castle he looked up, but each time his men shook their heads. One was at one end of the street, a second at the other so that when the knight and his friend came back, Toker and his companions could take them right here. No one would expect to be ambushed so near to the castle’s walls.
He didn’t raise his eyes from his leatherwork when Edgar shouted for Wat in the yard and cuffed the boy over the ear for his slowness, nor see Wat going up to the hall clutching the armfuls of cloth and parcels that his mistress had laden him with. The hall was inside the castle and Toker knew that the knight and his companion were out. He had sent Perkin and Owen to follow them. Toker had no idea where they could have gone, but he was content to wait until their return and then see how best to spring his attack.
If he had kept the door to the hall under more careful observation, he would have seen the door open a fraction and Edgar and Wat peer round it at him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The roadway was almost empty and Simon and Baldwin made good time as they cantered to Withleigh. The whole of the town was behind them now, and Baldwin felt a lightening of his spirits as he trotted on. Towns were all very well for those who could abide living squashed together like rats in a hole, but Baldwin was a man bred to space and freedom; he hated being bound up in the strict confines of a town. Out here, with trees covering the gentle hills at either side, he felt as if a cloak of intrigue and danger had sloughed away and at last he could relax his guard a little.
Not, he reflected, that he had been very careful. It was ludicrous that he should have found himself the target of an ambush and that a man like that buffoon Harlewin had been able to save them just in time.
‘Simon, do you think those men could have been ordered to kill us by Lord Hugh?’
‘Nothing’s impossible,’ Simon grunted doubtfully. ‘But why should Lord Hugh want to assassinate you? Wouldn’t Sir Peregrine be a more likely enemy?’
‘Yes. And he would be a likely candidate to try to remove Sir Gilbert, too.’
‘He was in the woods on the night Sir Gilbert died, riding away at speed,’ Simon recalled, ‘and he was in the castle when William was murdered.’
‘True, but Sir Peregrine is no murderer. He would always send one of his henchmen to do the nasty work,’ Baldwin considered. ‘I think you’re right – it was Sir Peregrine’s men who attacked us, although I have no idea why he would want to kill us.’
‘Who else is continuing to investigate Sir Gilbert’s death?’
‘You think that is it? He wants to silence us, just so that the matter is left alone?’ Baldwin asked. ‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘We know Sir Peregrine wants the Lords of the Marches to be supported by Lord Hugh, while Sir Gilbert was an agent of Despenser. Perhaps that’s all there is to it. A simple political murder.’
‘Possibly,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘But I don’t find it convincing. Sir Peregrine knows that the Marcher Lords are in the ascendant and the Despensers are gone. Why should he bother to kill Sir Gilbert? Those who had supported the Despensers have all gone to the side of other magnates. Sir Gilbert would hardly have been likely to persuade Lord Hugh to join him in serving the Despensers just when everyone else was deserting the man.’
‘Who else could it have been? Father Abraham looking to remove an excommunicate from his parish?’ Simon chuckled.
Baldwin set his head on one side. ‘It is possible, Simon. He is a curious man, that priest. Prepared to curse a man being installed in his grave, for example. Anyway, let’s hope he didn’t have more of an idea about Sir Gilbert’s visit to Templeton than he let on.’