‘Who do you think could have been responsible for his death?’
It was the older woman who answered for her. ‘Sir Geoffrey, of course. Who else could it have been?’
‘Why?’ Simon demanded. ‘You told us that Ailward’s father was a vassal to Roger Mortimer, but Ailward was steward to Sir Geoffrey. Why should Sir Geoffrey want to harm him?’
‘You know what has happened to Mortimer in the last few years! First insulted, then forced to go to war against his king, and all because of the Despenser. And now the bodies of Despenser’s enemies hang all over the kingdom like common felons. Despenser has no hesitation in killing those whom he sees as his natural enemies, and any friend of his enemy is his enemy also.’
‘My husband’s fate was sealed as soon as Lord Mortimer ran from the king’s gaol,’ Malkin said softly.
Simon glanced at her while Baldwin continued to question the older woman. This woman Malkin was very attractive, and it made her grief all the more sad to witness. It made Simon realise that his own sense of being overwhelmed by the loss of Hugh was perhaps out of proportion to his loss. Yes, Hugh had been a close companion, and a good, loyal, and usually truthful friend. This woman, though, had lost her husband. From now on she would be alone in the world unless she could win herself a new man. Her grief was the mature heartache of a wife whose life must soon change.
‘Is this your property?’ he asked quietly.
Malkin glanced at Isabel, who was now denouncing Despenser and all his henchmen with no restraint and less subtlety, as if she wondered whether she ought to speak without asking Isabel first. ‘No. It is owned by Sir Geoffrey and the manor.’
‘What will happen to you if he throws you from the land?’
She shrugged. ‘We shall leave.’
‘If your father-in-law and his father were both squires, then surely they had their own demesnes?’
‘When he died in Ireland, Isabel’s father-in-law lost much; her husband scraped together enough to arm himself by mortgaging his lands, and when he died too, all those who had debts owing from him came to demand their money.’
‘With him dead, surely the debts were unenforceable?’
She met his gaze. ‘A man who has died while serving a rebel who’s holding his banner against the king’s has few friends to fight even unfair actions. Especially when the Despenser decides to take over the debts.’
‘How so?’
‘He sent this Sir Geoffrey, and as soon as he arrived he told us that the king had made over all our lands to Despenser. They were forfeit and added to the Despenser’s holdings.’
‘So — you mean that the whole of the Monkleigh estate was yours originally?’
‘Yes. And they forced us from our home and made my husband work for them as a menial, their bailiff. They couldn’t even recognise him as a steward. They had to make him suffer for his father’s actions.’
‘I had no idea of this.’
‘You know the grossest insult? They have blackened the name of the vill with their depredations. Raiding other tenants’ holdings nearby in an attempt to force people from their own lands so that Sir Geoffrey can steal it for himself, and more: he has taken to hiring many felons in the hall. Most of them stay hidden behind his walls because he cannot allow them to be seen in public in case they are denounced and arrested for the common thieves and cut-purses that they are.’
‘They are surely there in the hall for all to see,’ Simon said lightly.
‘You think so? He has some five and twenty men there, I think. How many do you see when you visit them? If you are lucky, you may see one man-at-arms and his sergeant, but all the others who are about the manor in daylight are his villeins. There are none of his draw-latches, rapists or murderers in evidence while the sun shines. They only come out at night, like mares!’ She had paled, and as she spoke she clutched at the neck of her tunic with a fist clenched in anger and dread.
It took Nicholas le Poter some little while to realise that the place was empty, and as soon as he did, he stood and gazed about him with panic setting in.
This little chapel was surely the only safe place for him. He had to find a place of sanctuary where even Sir Geoffrey’s men would be fearful of entering. Then he could wait until the coroner arrived and gave him protection to escape. That was all he needed, a place to wait, but if there was no priest here, if Humphrey was gone, there was nowhere for him to stay! He thought even now that he could catch something at the edge of his hearing, as though there was a mass of hounds being collected, and he remembered what Sir Geoffrey had said — that he could run now, but his men would be along to hunt him.
He’d seen enough hunts. There’d been a villein who’d been accused of stealing from the hall, taking a wooden spoon. The man had denied it, but Sir Geoffrey hadn’t believed him and they’d let him run, setting off shortly afterwards with the hounds. The body had been dragged back, its heels bound to Sir Geoffrey’s saddle, and when the man’s widow had seen it, she’d fainted dead away. Someone had said she’d died a week or so later from the horror of seeing her man’s body flayed of all the flesh on his buttocks and back where he’d been dragged over the stones. Nicholas wasn’t sure that he’d been dead at the start of that return journey, although he had been pricked by two boar-lances already, but he was certainly dead by the end of it.
The chapel was silent and as cold as only an empty building can be. He’d shouted as he first bolted up to the altar, gripping the cloth anxiously as he stared about him wildly.
He had two choices: remain and be caught and killed, or flee again and find another, safer refuge. Where, though? There was nowhere else … unless he managed to get to Iddesleigh. There the church would offer greater protection than this little chapel. Here, without the priest in charge, he could be dragged out without trouble; even if Isaac and Humphrey had been here, it would have been touch and go whether the pair of them could have defended him against Sir Geoffrey’s men … but if he could reach Iddesleigh, he’d be safe enough. The way would be hard, and he’d have to hurry, but he could make it.
In the distance he was almost certain he could hear the squeaking of harnesses and the baying of hounds. It decided him. He let go the altar cloth and fled through the door and out to the road, and then, staring wildly and fearfully up at the hall, he set off at as swift a pace as he could manage towards the little vill that stood out so prominently on the hill ahead, without noticing that he had left his pack behind.
While Nicholas bolted, Humphrey was already almost at his chosen resting place. He followed the roadway down the hillside towards the river, and at the bottom, where the river cut through in its shallow, rocky path, he splashed through the water with a grimace against the freezing cold.
Over the river the hillside was fairly thickly wooded, and with the sun already very low in the western sky, he knew a faint trepidation and a chill that felt as though his bones were sensing the cold before his flesh. It was a superstitious sensation, not a rational one, he told himself. There was no point in fearing ghosts and creatures of the night, not when he was more likely to suffer from the worst of what men could do. And their worst would be extremely unpleasant.
He wanted to get into a place where he could rest for the night and sleep. There was a path which led off through some trees towards a small assart, and, spotting it, he sighed with relief. He’d thought he’d missed it. Picking up his feet more quickly, he scurried up the track towards the little place he recalled from several months ago.
When he was last here, he had been exploring, partly to understand the lie of the land in this little parish, but also because he knew that it was possible that one day he would need to know how best to escape the vill. He’d stumbled upon this little deserted assart by pure chance, and at the time he’d instantly thought that it could be a useful location to bear in mind, should he ever need a quiet, secure place of concealment.