Yet it was disappointing that he had failed to even engage her in conversation. Every time he attempted to speak to her, her steward interposed himself. It was most frustrating. James van Relenghes had a specific ambition: he wished to make love to Lady Katharine, to take her, body and soul, and to do so speedily. He couldn’t afford to wait while she overcame her better instincts. He didn’t have time.
This was the problem which nagged at him now, while he spun his knife in his hand and hurled it, flashing in the sunlight, to the mark he had cut in the tree before him. As always, the blade struck where he wished, but weakly, hanging at an angle, the handle drooping towards the ground. He was standing contemplating it when Godfrey arrived.
‘Sir, the knight has figured out that the boy was pulled through the ferns.’
Van Relenghes nodded slowly. ‘How much has he discovered?’
‘He has guessed that someone dragged him along there and dropped him down into the road. That drunken fool Thomas told me – he disagreed with the knight and came back here in a sulk. He’s fetching men, and then he’s off to Throwleigh to arrest the farmer.’
‘Ah, good!’ Van Relenghes rubbed his hands together, smiling thinly. ‘If they arrest him, that should divert attention from anyone else who was on the moor that day.’
Godfrey shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know what you plan, sir, but I’ll not see an innocent man go to the rope. No matter what else, if the farmer looks close to being hanged, I’ll tell the lady about you and Thomas.’
Van Relenghes glanced at him with honest surprise. ‘Would you? But that would mean people asking what you were doing up there. Some might think you yourself could have killed the child.’
‘No matter. I’ll not see the farmer hanged for something he couldn’t have done.’
‘You’ll do as you are told!’
Godfrey beamed. He stood motionless a moment, then his hand flew under his leather jack. When it reappeared, van Relenghes caught a glimpse of a flashing blade. Godfrey flicked it upwards, caught it and cast it in one fluid movement; it whirled past van Relenghes’s ear, scything through the air, and he heard it strike his target a moment later.
‘I’ll not see an innocent Englishman murdered to suit the plans of a foreigner, whether he pays me or no,’ Godfrey said, and now his grin was fixed, like a smile carved on ice. He walked past his master to retrieve his dagger.
Van Relenghes was tempted to reach for his sword – but better judgement prevailed. Godfrey was a master of defence, a man well-used to protecting himself. He had turned his back on van Relenghes, but that did not mean he was unprepared, and after witnessing the lighting speed of his movements, the Fleming wasn’t convinced he could draw and be certain of killing him before Godfrey could reach his knife. And van Relenghes was quite certain that if Godfrey did get to it, he could throw it before he, James, could unsheath his sword.
He did not move, watching as Godfrey grabbed the hilt of his knife, which was pinned securely in the tree, exactly perpendicular, the blade buried over an inch deep in the living wood. The force with which it had struck had knocked van Relenghes’s own dagger loose, and it lay on the ground. Godfrey stooped and picked it up. He twirled it in the air three times, before catching it by the point of the blade, then studied it for a short while before passing it back. ‘A good knife, sir – but not strong enough for fighting,’ he commented. ‘Not for fighting me, anyway’
Van Relenghes watched him walk away, perfectly composed and relaxed, and as the Fleming thrust his dagger back into its sheath, he tried to control the painful thudding of his heart.
In Godfrey’s eyes he had seen, just for a moment, his own death.
Chapter Sixteen
Petronilla brushed the rushes from the hall’s floor, moving them into the screens, and thence out to the stableyard. They had not rotted yet, and with the bones, half-gnawed by the dogs and rats, and the damp patches where dogs and cats had defecated or pissed, they were heavy. It was hard work moving them to the yard, and once there she leaned and rested on her besom, staring drearily at the manure-heap so far away, over at the other side of the stables.
When she saw Hugh, she put a hand to her back, rubbing slowly, allowing her face to take on an expression of patient suffering.
Hugh hadn’t seen her sudden collapse. As he approached, all he saw was a young girl with gleaming fair hair and slim body, who was in apparent pain.
Of the two servants, Edgar was more inclined to flirting. Hugh, a dour man at the best of times, was content with his own company. It was the way he had been brought up; the son of a farmer, as soon as he could fit stone to sling he had been sent out to protect the flocks from predators. By nature he was self-sufficient and comfortable; he admired women, and occasionally desired them, but the inns and alehouses could satisfy his needs, and he saw little point in the needless expense of a wife of his own.
His quietness in the presence of women was often construed as enormous shyness; it wasn’t. He simply saw no sense in engaging in flattery to no end. But his master had ensured that he had learned to be polite in order that he should not embarrass Simon or Margaret when they visited well-born households and, although his gruff, ‘Are you well, miss?’ could have been spoken in a softer voice, the words themselves were enough to assure Petronilla that she was safe from having to carry the rushes over to the manure-heap.
As compensation, she was prepared to be friendly with this morose-looking fellow.
‘You’re the bailiff’s servant, aren’t you?’ she asked.
‘That’s right, miss,’ Hugh said, walking to the stable door where a large pitchfork rested. He returned and speared a large forkful of the rushes and walked to the manure-heap. ‘I work for Master Simon Puttock, Bailiff of Lydford Castle under the Warden of the Stannaries, God bless him.’
‘He must be keen to find poor Master Herbert’s murderer,’ Petronilla said sadly, thinking of the boy’s ruined body. A long tress of hair had escaped from her cap, and she twirled it round her finger. Hugh didn’t notice that she was able to stand upright with ease now, nor that she was able to follow him from rushes to dung-pile without pain. ‘It must be a lot of responsibility, having to seek killers.’
‘Yes, but he’s good at it. There’s never a murderer escapes my master,’ said Hugh inaccurately.
‘What, never a one?’ she asked, pleasingly impressed.
He shrugged, but even Hugh could have his head turned a little by such approving adulation, and he swaggered as he returned to the rushes. Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, he thought to himself that she was a remarkably attractive girl, with her open, fresh features and high, clear brow, unmarked by the pox or wrinkles. He shoved his fork into the rushes and grunted as he lifted it.
‘Never a one,’ he repeated with satisfaction. ‘Master and the knight always find their killers. It’s not always easy, and not always safe, but they catch ’em all right.’
As he spoke Thomas emerged from the hall. At his side was Daniel, his staff of office under his arm, indignant and resentful at being ordered by Thomas, and ready to take out his pique on other servants. ‘Petronilla!’ he called bossily. ‘What are you doing out here? Get inside and see to the hall, it’s filthy!’
‘That’s what I am doing, Daniel.’