And his reason for turning up seemed equally odd. He wanted to talk to Luke, he said, but he appeared more interested in learning as much as he could about the dead cleric, Peter.
Janekyn yawned and shut the great doors that comprised the Fissand Gate, nodding to the two clerics. They dragged the massive wooden bars from their sockets in the left-hand wall and hauled them across to fit into the shallower seats in the wall opposite. Janekyn shrugged himself further into his robe and tried to protect his throat from the biting wind that threatened to flay the skin from his neck.
He had the one remaining duty, and that was to walk around the gates and make sure all were locked for the night. After so many years of performing this nightly service, he had a set routine. He had already seen to the Palace Gate, the Bear Gate, St Mary’s and St Petrock’s. All were locked. Now he had two remaining: the Bicklegh and St Martin’s Lane. One of the two Secondaries helping him was slapping his arms together in an attempt to warm them and Janekyn said kindly, ‘Come, the faster we walk the sooner you’ll be able to stand before a fire.’
The pair nodded enthusiastically, thinking of the jugs of steaming wine set before Janekyn’s fire.
As soon as they had gone, a figure drew away from the charnel chapel and stood listening for a moment. Hob of Whyteslegh shivered and it was only partly from the cold. He was petrified of being discovered.
The grounds of the Cathedral precinct were deserted. Above him the moon showed bright and clear in a starry sky, while the chill breeze from the south sent clouds scudding across at speed; each looked like a silken feather, billowing and changing shape in the silver light.
For Hob, the moon’s stark brightness was terrifying. He felt that, if he were to step another yard towards the gate, he must be seen by someone. Even now, there might be a Canon or clerk watching him, probably calling for armed guards to cut him down for desecrating the Cathedral’s grounds. The idea made him want to sidle back into the shadows of the charnel chapel and hide there, but fear of all the old bones interred within made him dread returning even more than he dreaded leaving.
At last he heard the faint whistle. It stirred him into action, and he scampered across the grass, slipping once and almost falling as his foot caught a loose cobble, but then he was at the corner of the Cathedral. The whistle came again and Hob gurgled with happiness to know he wasn’t alone out here with all the dead bodies in the cemetery. It was a moment or two before he could compose himself enough to whistle back in return, and a few moments later Sir Thomas walked around the wall. He nodded curtly to Hob, then peered cautiously about the precinct.
Sir Thomas was not in a contented mood. After searching through all Peter and Jolinde’s belongings in their room and finding nothing, since Jolinde had already removed his dead friend’s effects, he was bitter at the waste of time. Every moment he spent here, in the Cathedral’s grounds, he was in danger. If he should be found, many would recognise him, and there was only one punishment for an outlaw: the rope.
Sir Thomas was not sanguine about his prospects. Outlaws tended to die young. One day, if it was possible, he might give himself up and find a new, legitimate life, but not yet. Not while the murderer of Hamond lived. Hamond deserved to be avenged. That was why Sir Thomas had run the dreadful risk of joining the congregation in the Cathedral to hear the Mass, to seek out his son and learn all he could about the dead cleric Peter – the man who had born false witness against Hamond.
Unfortunately, Luke had been no use at all, apart from pointing to Peter’s and Jolinde’s house. And now he must escape from the Cathedral grounds before he could be discovered. In the past, Sir Thomas had made use of the Church’s wealth, robbing well-endowed parish chapels of their silver and pewter, selling their goods for cash. If he were found, the Bishop would be delighted to see him hang.
At first Sir Thomas had been forced into his outlawry when his lands had been overrun. It was impossible for him to compete when his neighbour, who was a friend of Hugh Despenser the Younger – at the time not a well-known man, but still related to the King by marriage – had launched first a legal attack, and then an armed sortie against Sir Thomas.
If Sir Thomas had been wealthy and renowned, he could have beaten off both. But he wasn’t. He was only a knight by birth and his poor little manor was scarcely able to support itself in peace, let alone raise funds to fight a small army. Perhaps if his wife, Luke’s mother, had lived he could have used her diplomatic skills to effect some kind of peace, but she was dead. Thrown from her mare only a year or so after Luke had left to join the Cathedral.
Without her he had no chance. All he knew was how to fight, but against this overwhelming force he was powerless. His neighbour’s men moved in and beat up all his servants in the fields until some were killed and the others feared going to their work, his crops rotted on the ground and he was forced to leave the place. There was nothing there – no income, no food, nothing.
In revenge Sir Thomas gathered up the men whom he could trust and launched a swift chevauchée against his tormentor. It had been successful, but the result had been the declaration some weeks later from the King’s own courts that he, Sir Thomas, was an outlaw. ‘If that is their decision, so be it,’ he had declared, and his men had cheered him. They slept that night in a tavern, then rode to his neighbour’s land. There he and his men executed their vengeance. The granaries were put to the torch; the barns, the outhouses, the cattle sheds, all were razed to the ground after Sir Thomas and his men had taken the best horseflesh, and then they had ridden off to the forests.
The first months had been tough, the succeeding ones infinitely worse as famine continued to scour the land. There was little to buy, let alone steal, and the only advantage to Sir Thomas was that his ranks were swelled by adventurers who were prepared to risk their lives to win a meal rather than die of starvation. Churches yielded their wealth to him and his men; rich travellers gave up their purses.
Up and down the county of Devonshire men and women paled at the news that Sir Thomas and his band were nearby. His face was described by those whom he had caught and released and since Karvinel’s accusation that he and his band had robbed him, Sir Thomas knew that if he were recognised in the city, he would be bound to be caught. That was why he now could come out only at night when he could walk in shadows. It wasn’t safe, but it was safer than daytime.
At least he had learned something. After talking to Luke, he had gone to Peter’s small home, had spotted Jolinde coming out of there and had followed the youth round the side of the cloister, observing him as he surreptitiously ducked below a beam and disappeared into a small space near the Cathedral’s wall. When Sir Thomas investigated, he learned how Jolinde had left and re-entered the Cathedral at night. The discovery pleased the grizzled knight. It could prove useful to him too, at some time in the future. If he didn’t have other men to meet now, he’d take the tunnels as a shortcut into the city. Only then did he return to search Jolinde’s house, but without success.
Hob was whimpering with trepidation; the moon was shining down upon them. Sir Thomas nodded and walked to the wall. There Hob untied his leather jack and unwound a thin rope from about his belly and chest. Sir Thomas wrapped a stone in linen and tied it to the rope, then hefted it in his hand. They were at Little Stile now, a small gate without a tower above, and Sir Thomas waited a moment, then whistled. There was nothing at first, so he tried again. This time there was a low, cautious whistle on the other side of the gate. Sir Thomas stepped back, whirled the stone at the end of the rope a few times over his head, then hurled it up and over the gate.