Still, at least he should soon know which was to become the abbot, and when he knew that, Simon would be able to confirm what his own position would be — whether he would be entitled to return to his work here on the moor, or whether he would have no position within the abbey at all. If that was the case, he was not sure what he would do.
At last he found himself dropping down the hill at Brat Tor, a long, gentle incline that halted at the road which headed northwards from Tavistock, and here Simon had to turn a little north himself, to meet the long road that took him along the ridge towards Lydford itself.
So many of the roads here in Devon wound about the long scarps at the top of hills. The alternative paths were precipitous lanes that sometimes dropped vertiginously into valleys, and then climbed alarmingly — and exhaustingly — back to the next. Simon had spent much of his youth swearing at such hills, but now that he was older, he minded them not at all. Especially since his rides to London and beyond. Those journeys had shown him how tedious travelling could be. There were whole plains in which a man could ride for days seeing scarcely a tree, and the only alteration was in the quality of the soil. Few places had the rich, black soil of the peat-filled moors of his homeland, or the deep red of the lands about Crediton, the earth that shouted to him of vegetables and cattle pasture. Nowhere he had seen could bear comparison with his own lands, he felt. Simon was a Devonian through and through.
The road brought him straight into the old stannary town of Lydford, and just as the great square, black block of the prison came into view, he turned left into his yard, and sat there a moment looking about him contentedly. He knew that the pride and happiness he felt now could not be improved upon. It was as though he had been a soul travelling for a thousand years in purgatory, only to suddenly find his way to the gates of heaven itself. He sighed with a gentle moan of contentment, and then took a deep breath.
‘Hey! Hoi! Is there anyone at home?’ he roared.
‘Simon? Simon? Oh, Simon!’ his wife called, and suddenly he was standing on the ground and Meg was in his arms.
He knew only delight at the feel of her breasts at his chest, her hips at his, her arms about him, her lips on his, and then she pulled back a little, hands on his shoulders, and he saw the tears in her eyes and smiled. ‘I’m home, Meg.’
But her words made his soft smile dissipate like fog in the sun.
‘Oh, Simon, what can we do?’
Beaulieu
There was no solution, Nicholas of Wisbech told himself. He needed one man to make his case for him, just one man, and in a week of searching it seemed plain that there was no one here.
He knew most of them. He should do after so many years working first with the King, and latterly trailing after him and his household, trying to see how to work his way back into the King’s favour, but of all of them, none appeared to desire to help him. There was nothing they could do, they said. Nothing they wanted to do, more like.
At least one or two had been happy enough to tell him the story of what had happened to the oil. A monk slain, the oil taken. That was bad, truly bad — but others said that a king’s herald had been killed, too, a man had been found by the side of the road, and that might mean that he had been killed by the same murderer and thief. Perhaps. There was no proof, of course, but in the King’s household, proof was rarely necessary to provide a good tale.
So the oil was gone. It was galling, and dreadfully soul-destroying. To think that, after all his efforts, the monks of Christ Church had failed so miserably, allowing the King’s property to be stolen like that … well! They might as well have left it on the roadside for anyone to pick up.
And meanwhile, he was stuck here, wondering what he might do to win a little favour. Oh, perhaps he ought to give up on all this and make his way back into the Church. He could join the Bishop of Orange, perhaps. The men who professed to know said that he was going to be returning to the Pope soon with a letter from the King. Perhaps Nicholas should volunteer to go and help. That might be a good idea. At least it would get him away from this blasted land with all the misery and failure he had experienced.
So long as the Pope didn’t look on him as unfavourably as the King, of course.
His feet had taken him on a circuit about the abbey gardens, and now he had made his way back to where he had started. He felt like some beggar at the door, walking about like this, trying to think his way through the problem. It was deeply shaming. But he could see no way round it. There had to be a means of …
And then he saw him. A man in the uniform of a king’s herald. A strong-looking man, tall, quite striking, really, and oddly familiar. Where had Nicholas seen him before, though?
Lydford
‘They came early in the morning,’ Meg said. ‘Five men, all of them armed, and they said that they were to take over our lands here.’
‘No one can take away our lands,’ Simon said. ‘These are mine!’
‘They said that the farm was owned by Sir Hugh le Despenser, Simon. They told me I had a week to leave, and then they’d come and formally take the place.’
‘A week? When was this?’
‘Sunday. Oh, Simon, it’s been driving me mad to think of it!’
‘What was the name of the man who said this?’
‘He was a man-at-arms, a man called William atte Wattere, he said.’
‘And did he have any kind of warrant?’
‘Nothing, husband. Simon, what can this mean?’
‘It means that someone has made an error, Meg. Don’t you worry yourself.’
‘But our farm — all our lands, everything we’ve built in the last ten years, we’d lose everything if he succeeds!’
‘No one is taking my farm from me, Meg. In the worst case, I’ll speak with the new Abbot of Tavistock. My service there is enough to make sure I have the support of the new abbot. Uh — who is the abbot?’
‘You hadn’t heard?’
‘In France? No. Who is it?’
‘There isn’t one. The monks all elected Robert Busse to take the abbacy, but John de Courtenay contested it, and so the Pope has appointed the Cardinal de Fargis to adjudicate between them. It’s all in uproar in Tavistock, they say. All the monks are arguing and fighting, and the two men at the centre will not talk to each other. It’s horrible.’
‘Oh,’ Simon said, but his mild tone belied his racing thoughts because he did not truly own this place. He held it on a lease. Still, that meant Despenser could not simply take it from Simon. However, without an abbot to give him support, he was in a weaker position. There was no man whom he could petition in his defence. Although he had lived on these lands for almost ten years, that did not mean he was secure. If Despenser had it in his mind to take them, it would be enormously difficult for Simon to fight so strong a protagonist.
Baldwin was his friend, of course, and if there was a fight, Simon knew he could count on him. But this was not an ordinary problem. It was a matter of politics, too. He had no idea what the man Wattere thought of it, but if Despenser was involved, that meant that it was a situation where national politics could hold sway. Despenser would make sure of it. And if Despenser wanted, he could force Simon from the land by use of his men. He had so many people he could use to make life impossible for men like Simon, men without hosts of servants and men-at-arms, men without political influence …