‘What now?’ she murmured as his hand slid along her flank.
‘I was enjoying the peace before dawn,’ he said. ‘I do not suppose you …?’
‘It will not last,’ she said with confidence. Already there was the sound of small feet downstairs, and Baldwin was sure that in a moment the door would be thrown wide open and Richalda would be upon him.
‘I missed you,’ she said quietly.
‘And I you.’
‘It was hard, not knowing when you would be returning.’
‘It was as hard for me, Jeanne. I had no idea when I might be permitted to return from the Queen. Still, I am back now.’
‘And hopefully you will not have to leave us again?’
‘Jeanne, if there was any such need, I would take you with me.’
‘What, even to France? You know that they have clothes and material in Paris that a woman would sell her children to buy?’
He chuckled. ‘Then it is fortunate that we won’t be going, maid. We can stay here and live the gentle life of rural knighthood. I shall be Keeper of the King’s Peace again, you shall be my wife, and the King and the Queen may sort out their own problems.’
‘You think so? There are terrible rumours, Baldwin.’
‘Of what nature?’
‘People talk of traitors gathering hosts abroad, Baldwin. They say that we could be invaded by the French, that they will come and pillage and kill all who stand before them-’
‘No. I saw no desire to try to overcome our lands while I was there. The French are angry that our King will not go to pay homage to their King for the lands he holds from King Charles, but there is not desire for war. They will absorb the King’s possessions, that is all.’
‘They say that the traitors will come, though.’
‘There is one traitor, Roger Mortimer, who would be able to collect some mercenaries about him, but even the French King knows what sort of man he is, I think. He sent Mortimer from his court. The man’s without friends even there.’ He did not say that Mortimer had warned Baldwin of the threat posed to him by Despenser.
‘That relieves me, husband.’
‘Good,’ Baldwin said. There was no need to worry her. She need not hear that he had met Mortimer. It was the kind of information that could serve no useful purpose.
‘Will you remain here now?’
There was a small tone of doubt in her voice, a note that tore at his heart. Only a short while before, Baldwin had been unfaithful to her. Oh, there were plenty of excuses to justify his behaviour, but he had found when he came home again afterwards, that his relationship with Jeanne had been affected. He felt his guilt, and it put a pall over their love. It was only recently that he had felt the shame and remorse lift, and their lives had returned to — if not the same tenor as before — a new balance.
‘I will remain here, woman. Unless the King calls me away. And if he does, you may journey with me, as I said, even if it means I must take you to Paris and buy every item in every haberdashery shop!’
She mumbled at that, and by the regularity of her breathing, he knew she had fallen asleep again.
He wished to sleep like his wife, but try as he might, he was left with a sour flavour in his mouth whenever he thought once more of the man left dead at the side of the road in those woods. He felt a certain guilt at not seeking the killer more relentlessly. It was the first time he had not. There was no comfort in the reflection that it was not his responsibility while on the road — that was only a sop to his own conscience. If he could return, he would spend more time on seeking the man’s murderer.
And learning who it was who had taken the King’s oil.
Beaulieu
Sir Hugh le Despenser was already in his chamber, his clerks at their table, running through the expenses for his stay here at Beaulieu so far, and keeping an eye on his ready money, when the knock came at his door.
His man was a hard-faced fellow with the thick hair and grey eyes of a southern Welshman. He was slight, with a gentle gait that concealed his strength. Although his limbs looked thin, they were immensely wiry and powerful.
He looked at Despenser. ‘I’ve checked.’
‘And?’
‘The herald you mentioned, Richard de Yatton, has been missing for some days. He was sent off to see the Castellan at Leeds Castle, but he never came back.’
‘How long ago did he leave?’
‘About the end of the Lenten period. Not sooner.’
‘He left in Lent? Before Easter? You’re sure?’
‘He was sent away while we were still in Westminster, and hasn’t been seen since. He never came back.’
‘Good. I think we know who the dead herald at the side of the road was, then,’ Despenser said with a cold frown at the ground. ‘But who killed him, and why? What would be the point of killing a King’s herald? It’s not as though he was carrying a lot of money about him. Or was he?’
‘It’d be sure to bring down a painful load of trouble on the man’s head, Sir Hugh.’
‘Yes. I think you’re right there. We need to do the same.’
Chapter Eighteen
Vigil of the Feast of the Apostles20
Near Lydford
It took Simon an extra day to cover the distance to his own home, and it was the excitement at seeing his wife again that caused him to rise before the dawn on that Wednesday and set off on the last few miles of his journey after spending the night on the moors.
He had stopped at the little inn that nestled on the southern side of the road from Mortonhampstead, perhaps one third of the way over the moors. From here he could turn up, past the little dwarf trees at Wistman’s Wood, and head westwards, towards his home. It was a route he had taken often enough, and it would give him a clear view on how the moors were. After his travels to London and thence to France, it felt like an age since he had last been here, on the moors where he had been happiest. There was nowhere better for a man to live, he reckoned.
All appeared normal. There were occasional plumes of smoke from the tin works, where the miners tried to smelt their ore into black ingots of semi-pure metal, and the constant sound of water from leats, hammering, and the slow, rumbling of mill-wheels. On the early morning air, all these sounds carried so clearly, the workings might have been right at his side, rather than perhaps a mile distant. Not that he cared. The main thing was, that the moors were being farmed, so there was still work for him, provided he had a job.
Some months past, he had been given a new post as Keeper of the Port of Dartmouth, a great honour and promotion which his master, the Abbot of Tavistock, had given him as reward for his service over the past years. The sad truth was, however, that he didn’t want it, and neither did his wife. Meg would have been happy to remain as the wife of a bailiff on the moors. She had no desire for more money or the authority that came from a senior position. All she craved was that their lives might continue comfortably, that their children might grow strong and healthy, and that she and her husband might enjoy their time together. The idea that they should be uprooted and dropped some tens of miles to the south, devoid of friends, without even the companionship of the animals on their small farms, threw her into a despondency. And the alternative was to see her husband go to do his duty while she remained here at their home.
It had been a wrench, but that was the only resolution at first. But now all had changed, because the good abbot had died, and the two men who desired his abbacy were fighting over it tooth and nail. Simon had no idea who would eventually succeed to the post, whether it be John de Courtenay, whom Simon considered a fool, or the more urbane, calm, Roger Busse, whom Simon thought much brighter, and possibly more corrupt. There were rumours, which Simon had confirmed to his own satisfaction, that Busse made use of a necromancer in Exeter. That was itself enough to disqualify the man from the abbacy, so far as Simon was concerned.