He threw one last glance out to sea, to the grey roiling waters with the white tops, and shivered as though someone had walked over his grave. There was an odd sensation in his belly and bowels; it felt as though God had sent him a warning that he would find no peace if he turned away and sought his fortune elsewhere.
‘What else would you have me do?’ he muttered. ‘Starve to death up here?’
With a firm rejection of the northern seas, he set his shoulders and began the long march southwards. Plymouth had been no good to him, but perhaps he would be luckier in Dartmouth. He would try it.
Fourth Thursday after the Feast of the Archangel Michael*
Exeter, Devon
They arrived at the gate in a flurry of noise and excitement as night was falling.
At first Simon and Sir Richard had been happy enough to keep at the gentle trot that had been enough to bring them over the broad plains east of the city. Wolf, too, looked as though he would appreciate a more sedate promenade, ideally with opportunities to investigate the various holes that dotted the hedges and walls about here, but Baldwin would have none of it.
‘We’ve made excellent time to get here so quickly,’ he declared, and lashed the flanks of his mount, making the beast rear. ‘Come, fellows! Let us hasten to my home and rest there!’
‘Baldwin!’ Simon protested. ‘It’ll be dark before we get even remotely close to your home. It is now nearly sunset. We shall have to stay in Exeter the night.’
Baldwin looked ahead at the sun starting to sink down below the hills westwards, then up at the clouds looming overhead, before reluctantly nodding. ‘I suppose we’d be unlikely to make it home tonight.’
‘Not even a remote chance,’ Simon said. He shifted in his saddle. ‘We’ve made excellent time in the last four days. I don’t intend to break my neck for the sake of saving a few hours tomorrow morning. Much though I’d like to see Jeanne and Richalda and little Baldwin, not to mention my own family, there’s no point flogging our way over the country in the dark.’
‘True enough,’ Baldwin agreed. The potholes could be lethal in dim light. There was a man last year who had seen a hat floating in a puddle in a roadway, and when he lifted it, discovered the owner was still wearing it. The poor fellow had already drowned. There were so many little holes in the road, and occasionally they would grow more vast as a result of sudden rainfall, and the unwary would die. Even much shallower holes held their own risks, for they could break a horse’s leg, throw a rider, and result in the deaths of both.
Sir Richard sucked at his teeth. ‘There’s usually a room at a little tavern I know,’ he said hopefully. ‘Excellent ale, better wine, and the food’s acceptable too. I’d-’
Simon hastily interrupted. ‘I am sure that my daughter would be happy to give us some space in her home.’
‘Your daughter?’ Sir Richard asked.
‘Yes. Edith married on the morrow of the Feast of Gordianus and Epimachus,* and lives now with her man in Exeter,’ Simon said. ‘Peter is a keen merchant. Was apprenticed, but now he’s working with his father, who’s a merchant too. With any luck he’ll be allowed to enter the Freedom of the City, and then who knows? My grandchildren may be born into the city themselves, and have all the advantages.’
Baldwin smiled at his expression. ‘You would like that, wouldn’t you, Simon?’
‘Like it? The idea is wonderful,’ Simon said, a little more sharply than he intended. He tried to cover his tone with a chuckle and an apologetic grin. ‘You come from a knightly family, Baldwin. You can’t quite appreciate the difference between being born a free man and being born a serf. The idea that my grandchildren will have the benefit of being born in the city is marvellous. I’d never have expected that.’
‘Then let’s go and see her house,’ Sir Richard said. ‘Any daughter of yours must be a sight to behold — especially if she has access to her own wine cellar,’ he added hopefully.
St Pancras Lane, Exeter
‘Are you sure you know where you’re going?’ Baldwin asked for the third time.
‘I have only heard where the house is, I haven’t been here before,’ Simon said.
He was rapidly growing alarmed. Edith had told him that her house was down this lane, he was sure. The place, she had said, had a limewashed front, with two large windows and a second storey that hung over the street. It had been the home to her husband Peter when he was younger, but Peter’s parents had built a new house further east, nearer the Guild Hall, and had given their older house to Peter and his wife. He was their only son, after all.
‘Well if you can’t find it,’ the coroner said happily, ‘there’s a very excellent-looking tavern over there. Perhaps they have a room that we could share, eh? God’s blood, but a haunch of meat and a jug of good strong Guyennois wine would go down very well. There’s a gap there where my belly used to be. My brain’s telling me all’s well, but my heart reckons some evil bastard’s cut my throat.’
‘It must be here,’ Simon said.
The three were standing near the line of houses on the eastern side of the road, and now he looked up and down again. ‘If we don’t get there soon, we’ll be breaking the curfew.’
‘Talk of the devil,’ Sir Richard said, jerking his head.
Approaching them with a scowl that would have graced a mastiff was a tall, gangly fellow. He wore a leather jerkin, his hood was over his ears, and his waxed cloak rustled noisily. Yet although he was not the most prepossessing figure, the staff in his hands was a tool to be reckoned with. ‘You are out late, masters.’
‘Aye,’ Sir Richard said. ‘We are a little confused in our ways, I think.’
‘Confused, eh? Perhaps you’d like me to help unconfuse you?’
Baldwin glanced at the others. They were all cloaked against the chill, and he wondered whether the lad had realised that two of them were knights. Certainly his tone was not respectful. If anything, he sounded peevishly suspicious. Even as Baldwin turned to glance back, he saw the lad was gripping his staff more truculently. It was pointing at Sir Richard — which did, at least, demonstrate to Baldwin that the fellow knew how to spot the most dangerous of the three.
‘Friend,’ Baldwin said, ‘please be calm. This man here is the father of a mistress who lives along this road, but we have not visited her home before. She only married earlier this year.’
‘What’s her name?’
Simon grunted. ‘Edith. She married Peter, son of-’
‘The merchant Charles? Oh, that’s all right. I can show you the way there,’ the lad said. Suddenly he was all affability. ‘Sorry, lordings, but there are so many strangers who cause mayhem now. Some little scrotes kicked in a couple of doors two nights ago, and when my mate Phil went to talk to them, they kicked him in too. Poor bastard’s up in his bed yet with a broken head. And then there’s been all the other murders outside the city too. Don’t blame you for coming here to stay the night. Dangerous all over the shire nowadays. There’s no law in the land.’
‘It was easy enough when we left,’ Baldwin said.
‘Aye, well, maybe that was a while ago. There are so many men wandering the roads now without any way to support themselves, if you know what I mean.’
As he spoke he took them up the road, along a short lane, and to a large limewashed front.
‘This is it,’ he said, rapping sharply on the door.
Baldwin and Simon thanked him, and Baldwin gave him a penny for his trouble. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m called Gil. Well, my name was Gilbert, but no one calls me that. Thank you, my lord. God speed you all!’ the watchman said as he left them, backing away respectfully with a happy smile on his face.