Baldwin flashed his teeth in a smile. ‘Perhaps some do. Since I cannot grow a stalk of wheat to feed myself, I find I appreciate those men who can.’
‘I wish you were my master, then,’ Perkin said sadly. ‘Here we are not respected.’
‘Ailward was a serf, and he let his jealous nature get the better of him on occasion?’
‘Too often.’
‘This man Walter,’ Simon said. ‘What was he doing with Ailward? Is he also from your manor?’
‘No. He is one of Sir Odo’s mercenaries.’
‘Yet the two were together up here? What did you think of that? Two enemies together?’
Perkin had the decency to be embarrassed. ‘I thought … well, I wondered, really, whether Ailward might have caught a woman and killed her in a rage when she turned down his advances.’
‘You mean Lady Lucy?’
‘She was in all our minds at that time, Sir Baldwin. There was a great deal of concern for her since she had disappeared. I don’t know exactly what I thought, but I reckoned that Ailward being up there meant he was up to no good. And then Walter hit me, and my thoughts went back to the game.’
‘And later you returned because you thought you’d seen something?’ Simon asked.
‘Well, yes. I just thought, if I could find some blood, then that’d prove that Ailward had killed someone.’
‘And as you say, everyone was thinking of this Lady Lucy.’ Baldwin nodded.
‘But when I got back, all there was was Ailward himself, and his gore smearing the furze.’
‘Was he in the vill after the camp ball match?’ Simon frowned, kicking at the soil.
‘No. He never appeared. We all thought he was gone home.’
‘So Walter and he were up here, and they had a body with them. Why? Where were they going to go with it?’ Baldwin said. He looked carefully all about them. ‘That, north, that is where Hugh’s house lies. What of those houses east of us?’
Perkin followed the direction of his pointing finger. ‘That’s where Pagan lives. It was his father’s old smithy. He was an armourer, you know.’
‘An armourer?’ Baldwin said. ‘And the house next door?’
‘That is Guy’s.’
‘Perkin, you have been most helpful, and I have one last task to ask of you. Could you tell us the way to the farm where Crokers lives?’
‘Of course. Now?’
‘No — in a moment.’ Baldwin paused and studied the land before them. ‘It looks as though Sir Geoffrey is off hunting. I wonder what quarry he’ll seek today? So long as he avoids the church at Iddesleigh, I’ll be content.’
He peered about in all directions, but there were three that kept attracting his eye: southwards to the hall of Sir Geoffrey, east to Pagan’s house, and north towards Hugh’s ruined cottage.
‘But what were they doing with a body on the day of the camp ball match?’ he said at last. ‘They must have known it was going to happen.’
‘Yes,’ Perkin said. ‘Everyone in all the vills knew about it. They came from two or three miles away to watch it.’
‘So they must have known that they would be seen up here,’ Baldwin said. ‘Why would they run the risk of discovery by carrying a corpse over here after executing the poor woman?’
Simon looked over at the houses east. ‘They had tortured her, hadn’t they?’
‘They wouldn’t do that in the open air,’ Baldwin agreed.
‘You say that the man Pagan’s father was an armourer?’ Simon said.
‘Yes.’
‘So there is a forge up there?’
‘Always used to be, yes.’
‘Let’s go and take a look, Baldwin. It won’t take long.’
It was good always to feel the wind in your hair. Sir Geoffrey expected a token resistance at best; urgently fleeing peasants would be more likely. There was no point in their trying to protect this chunk of land from him. All the men down there would know full well that he was more or less their legitimate master, so they’d not dare raise even a thumb to bite at him.
He had disposed his host adequately. The two sergeants, his bodyguards, would take their little forces to the mill down by the chapel and to the ford further up. Meanwhile, Sir Geoffrey would lead the main force down the main road to Crokers’s house. If all went well, without bloodshed they would win the whole of the old lands on this side of the river. Then they could start to move northwards and begin to loosen Sir Odo’s stranglehold on Iddesleigh itself. That would be a sweet cherry to pluck, with the inn in the middle. On this road it would not make so much money as, say, a tavern on the Oxford to London road, but it would bring in a small fortune compared to Ailward’s inheritance.
The fool. Sir Geoffrey wasn’t sure what had happened, but he was fully aware that he was being set up as the clear and obvious suspect in a series of murders. He would not submit to any man, not even the suave and polite Sir Baldwin, to be tried for murder. That would mark him for life, even if he received a pardon in due course.
But it hurt unbearably to think that Sir Odo could have been so cunning as to think up this scheme when all the time Sir Geoffrey had thought he had the upper hand.
The houses were little more than sheds: simple cruck-built frames with cob used to fill the spaces. Perkin took them to Guy’s house first. It was empty, because Guy himself would be in the coppice with his children. He lived the outdoor life of a charcoal-burner, and even now he had a great pile smoking away. Perkin told them that his wife was off helping Beorn’s wife brew ale. It was often a collaborative task.
Baldwin glanced at Simon as they moved towards the farther of the two properties. For his own part, his hand kept straying to the hilt of his sword, as though seeking comfort from it. But there could be no comfort in a place like this. Baldwin was aware of a heaviness in his soul at the thought that this was a place where a young woman could have been dragged, perhaps screaming and desperate, only to be bound and tortured to death.
‘This Pagan,’ he said. ‘Tell me, Perkin: does he work for Sir Geoffrey?’
‘No, never. He was always devoted to Sir William and Sir Robert.’
‘Lady Isabel’s husband and his father?’
‘Yes. Pagan would spit on money offered to him by Sir Geoffrey — he still thinks that the family should return to their own house. As do most of us.’
‘A bold comment, friend,’ Baldwin noted.
‘Our new master is a leader of thieves and felons. How can we be loyal to him?’ Perkin snapped.
‘If I am right you will not have to compromise your loyalty for long,’ Baldwin said. ‘If he has a part in this murder, I shall see him taken to Exeter, I swear.’
‘You think he does?’ Perkin asked hopefully.
Baldwin shook his head ruminatively. ‘All I can say for certain is that Pagan appears to have some explaining to do, as does this Walter. This is the house?’
They had reached a ramshackle building with green walls and a roof composed of chestnut shingles — a rare sight in Devonshire. Baldwin put his hand to the door and opened the latch. He pushed. There was a squeak and a scraping noise as the timbers moved over the rough flooring.
It was a small chamber, perhaps only twelve feet by ten. A hearth lay in the middle of the floor, a cauldron nearby. There was a stench of rancid ale about the room, and on the single low table there was a hunk of dry bread and some ancient cheese, on which the flies were eagerly prancing. A palliasse was rolled neatly and rested on a shelf, while in a hollow dug out of the wall there stood all the man’s most prized possessions: a small crucifix, a shell and lead pilgrim’s badge. There was also a malformed horseshoe.
Baldwin picked it up. ‘This is a terrible piece of work.’
‘What of it? It’s not for sale.’
‘Ah! Pagan, I was wondering whether you would join us here,’ Baldwin said, eyeing the old but well-polished sword in his hand.