‘I think we’ll leave my plans as they are,’ he said icily.
Sir Edward smiled thinly. ‘I should go to my rest, then. I have a long day tomorrow.’
‘Vain, conceited coxcomb!’ Sir Geoffrey muttered under his breath. Then: ‘Where’s my food?’
Baldwin woke to a morning that was crisp and clear, with the only clouds showing over Dartmoor in the distance. By some miracle, Emma had not entered to trouble them in the middle of the night, and Baldwin had enjoyed his best night’s sleep in many a month.
Pulling on some clothes, he walked out into the main hall and squatted at the fire. The boy must have been in already, because there was a fresh faggot on the previous night’s embers, and already a crackling and hissing spoke of warmth to come. Smoke was issuing from both ends of the faggot, and Baldwin prodded it hopefully.
‘Oi, sir knight, leave the fire alone. I won’t have people play with it. It’s a bugger to light, and I don’t want to have it go out as soon as I leave it alone!’
Baldwin grinned and left it, instead walking to Jankin and asking where his well was, or his spring.
‘We have a well at the back. Wait a moment and I’ll send a boy for a bucket for you,’ the innkeeper promised.
‘Of course,’ Baldwin said and cast his eye over the little room. Simon was snoring on a bench in a corner, his cloak over him, a hat obscuring his face. Edgar was nowhere to be seen, but there was nothing new in that. Baldwin knew his man would often be awake an hour or more before dawn. Some of the restlessness of their life in that twilight period between the collapse of the Knights Templar and their arrival back safe in England had never entirely left him. He liked to rise before the sun and walk for a little even in the coldest weather.
There were a few others dotted about the hall, but one face was conspicuously absent. ‘Jankin, where is my wife’s maid?’
At once Jankin grew shifty. He smiled, but his eyes avoided Baldwin’s face. ‘The maid?’
‘Don’t be daft, man! The ugly bitch with a breast like a mountain. When she beetles her eyebrows you could crack a nut in them. Where is she?’
‘I couldn’t say for sure, sir.’
Baldwin was inclined to feel alarmed. The woman was a miserable drain on his emotions, it was true, and she had caused more arguments and rages in the house than any servant before or since, but he didn’t like to think that she could have come to harm. ‘She was insulting your men at the bar last afternoon and evening.’
‘Oh, that wasn’t insulting. They’ve heard worse, Sir Baldwin. No, that would all have been taken in good part. Ah — here she is!’
Baldwin spun on his heel to see her walk in. She wore her customary glower again, her features slightly flushed, and Baldwin wondered if she was severely hungover. She stared at Baldwin as though daring him to make a comment. ‘This place is miserable. Not even a decent pit to crap in,’ she said, and shouldered her way past Jankin.
He looked at Sir Baldwin for a long moment. ‘Was she already your wife’s maid when you married?’
Baldwin said, ‘What makes you ask that?’
‘I thought so.’
It was past the third hour of the morning by the time the men began to gather in the yard near the church. Sir Geoffrey had sent a party of six of his men on horseback, and Sir Odo three of his own. However, Sir Odo also had the menfolk of Iddesleigh on his side should there be trouble. He had no cause to fear any action by Sir Geoffrey.
Coroner Edward was the man whom Baldwin wanted to study. As soon as he saw the man, he knew he had met him before. ‘He was at the tournament at Okehampton,’ he said, pointing him out to his wife.
Jeanne peered. ‘Good looking for a fair man,’ she said musingly. ‘It is fortunate that I prefer my men dark, husband.’
‘That may be a problem soon,’ Baldwin grunted. He ran a hand through his greying thatch. ‘Even my beard’s more white than dark now.’
‘Not to me, husband.’ Jeanne smiled, and kissed his chin.
‘Come! I must accompany them. Will you stay with us or go back to look after Richalda?’
Jeanne pulled a face. ‘I’ll go back. Emma looks as though she had a night of debauchery and no sleep. I wouldn’t trust her with our daughter for long.’
‘Good! And now I must go from the look of things,’ Baldwin said as the party began to move in the direction of the church. ‘Simon?’
The bailiff nodded and dropped the stick he had been whittling, crossing the grass to join them. He looked as though he had rested, but not enough. His eyes had dark sacks beneath them, and he appeared to have aged by ten years in the last couple of days.
‘Old friend, are you …?’
‘I’ll be fine. Let’s get this over with.’
The men at arms all dropped from their horses and tied them to any available ring, post or sapling, while the crowd of villeins, some children, and a pair of low, skulking dogs, walked over the yard to the door.
By shoving unmercifully, Baldwin was soon at the front of the press of people. He entered the church a short distance behind the short, square figure of Sir Odo, and as he walked in caught sight of Edgar, smiling widely, leaning against the farther wall. The reason for Edgar’s delight was unclear to Baldwin. It looked irreverent, given the present circumstances, and he was tempted to give a signal to register his disgust — but then he was pushed forward until he was at the side of the coroner. ‘Sir Edward.’
‘Yes?’
The man gave him a supercilious look that started at Baldwin’s faded boots and gradually rose over the stained and marked old tunic to his face. In Coroner Edward’s eyes there was amused contempt — until he met Baldwin’s gaze.
There had been times when Baldwin had been interrogating witnesses or felons when all means of persuasion had failed and the men had stood resolutely silent. At times like that Baldwin would lower his head a little and fix his victim with an unblinking stare. He could do it by considering the man’s offences, assessing his worth as a witness, or even, on one notable occasion, by trying to remember what it had been that his wife had told him not to forget to buy that day, but it always succeeded.
Today it served to cow the coroner.
‘I am Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, the Keeper of the King’s Peace. I am here to assist in the capture of the murderers of the family of Hugh of Drewsteignton, Ailward the bailiff of Sir Geoffrey, and Lady Lucy of Meeth.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Coroner Edward said. He essayed a smile. ‘Perhaps we can talk later? I have a sanctuary-seeking fellow in here to talk to.’
‘You will wish to interrogate the man, of course.’ Baldwin stood aside, but he walked to the altar and stood there in clear view of the coroner. He folded his arms and contemplated the proceedings as Sir Edward surveyed the scruffy and injured man-at-arms.
‘You are Nicholas le Poter?’
‘Yes.’ Nicholas had both hands clutching at the altar cloth. If he were to let go, his sanctuary could be rendered null and void.
‘And you are guilty of the murder of Lady Lucy of Meeth?’
‘No! I’ve killed no one.’
‘Really? Then you would like to surrender yourself to my authority so that we can evaluate your evidence.’
‘I can’t stay in the hall under him,’ Nicholas declared, pointing with his chin at Sir Geoffrey. ‘He’ll kill me the first chance he has!’
‘You have no choice,’ the coroner said softly. He motioned to two men at his side. ‘Take him. He’s asked to have his case …’
Baldwin was about to step forward when he felt a movement behind him. Before the coroner could complete his sentence, Matthew was at Nicholas’s side, a great staff in his hands.
‘This man still claims sanctuary.’
‘He wants to prove his innocence, Father. Let us take him away for you.’
Matthew shook his head. ‘You can offer him the opportunity to abjure the realm, if you wish, and you can come here and speak to him for thirty days, but you will not take a man from the sanctuary offered to him by this most holy house. You will not, sir!’