‘Lydford, Puttock? You forget yourself. You have no authority to hold me there or anywhere. You are no bailiff any more. And you’ve lost your job at Dartmouth, I hear? You are nothing. Me, I represent Sir Hugh Despenser. You have made him your own personal enemy. I should leave quickly now, before you earn more of his just ire.’
He bent to pick up his sword, but Simon put his boot on it. ‘You will leave that. You draw steel on me in my hall, you prickle, and you lose it.’
William Wattere nodded, his eyes lidded, and then he cast a long, slow look about the hall. ‘I shall tell my Lord what you have done. I’ll show him this injury. I hope you enjoyed your time here, Bailiff, because it’s coming to a swift conclusion. My respects to your wife.’
Beaulieu
Peter found his son outside and said nothing as he came level with him; he just nodded to John and continued on his way.
‘So we leave here and go back?’
‘Our master will have to cope without us for a little longer. We are to stay here with the Bishop. He tells me that the King’s going to have a meeting of his advisers in Westminster before long, so we can travel there with the Bishop. All the members of the King’s council will be there. That means all the Bishops and earls will be present for it.’
‘So if we stay with the Bishop, we’ll get up there anyway? Good.’
‘Yes. The sooner we can return the happier I’ll be.’
Lydford
Simon had a hurried conversation with his daughter and her man before sending Edith from the room.
‘Right, Master Peter,’ Simon said grimly, walking back to the fire with the two swords in his hands. He sheathed his own, and peered at the one he had retrieved from William Wattere. ‘Hmm. Not bad.’
Peter was a young apprentice who lived not far from Lydford. He had been the cause of Simon’s unhappiness ever since he had been given the post of Keeper at Dartmouth, and he held the lad in little regard as a result.
It wasn’t his fault, though. He had fallen in love with Edith, and she with him. That was why Edith had complained so bitterly at the thought of going with Simon and Meg to Dartmouth: she had no wish to be further away from her Peter than necessary. That was why she’d wailed and moaned and complained about the idea of being sent into ‘exile’ so far from her home. Peter couldn’t go with them — he was apprenticed to a successful merchant, Master Harold — so that was that. Edith did not wish to go, and they could not leave her behind. So Margaret, his Meg, remained here in Lydford with Edith and their son Perkin, and Simon travelled on alone.
Peter was staring at him with unabashed astonishment. Perhaps mingled with fear. It was that realisation that made Simon grunt an apology. If he had attempted to beg the hand of his own wife in marriage at a tender age from a man whom he had just witnessed fighting with another, Simon might have been reticent, too.
‘What, boy?’ Simon demanded.
‘Do you want a cloth? A towel?’
Simon frowned, and looked down at his hand. His sword hand had blood all over the palm where Wattere’s blood had run along the blade and down to the hilt. With a gesture of irritation, Simon wiped it on his breast. ‘It’s nothing. Not mine,’ he added. ‘Now, you are still determined to take my daughter?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Peter was staring at his other shoulder.
Simon eyed him a moment in silence, then realised that the boy was gazing at the wound Wattere had inflicted on him. With a quick glance at it, he convinced himself that it was a very minor scratch, and marched across the room to his little sideboard. There was a small pewter jug on it, and a couple of goblets which he had asked Meg to set out earlier. Now he poured from the jug a little of that wonderful, potent, burned wine22. Passing one to Peter, he contemplated the lad once more.
‘You are apprenticed to Harold the Merchant?’
‘I was. I am not now. I have finished my apprenticeship, and I work with him.’
‘What of your father?’
Peter was embarrassingly keen to tell Simon all he needed to know, and as the sun passed slowly around, the pool of light from the southern window moving two feet across the floor, Peter told all about his youth, his father’s business as a merchant in the city of Exeter, and his own hopes to become a freeman of the City himself.
‘Enough!’ Simon said, pouring the last of their drink. ‘You will look after her?’
‘Of course. I love her, Master.’
‘You can call me Simon,’ he said, and with those words, he felt an emptiness as deep as a well in his heart.
With those few words he had agreed to give away his daughter.
Morrow of Feast of the Apostles23
Furnshill
Baldwin had finished a leisurely breakfast of cold meats and a hunk of bread when he heard the clattering of hooves outside on the cobbles, soon followed by a deep bark from Wolf. He turned his head to one side to listen, glancing at his wife as he did so. ‘Who can that be?’
He did not have long to wait to find out. The man who entered was a grim-faced, glowering man who gazed about him with the natural suspicion of a shepherd in an inn full of rustlers. Baldwin knew him as Hugh, Simon’s oldest and most trusted servant. Hugh had no great affection for dogs other than the native sheepdogs he had grown up with as a shepherd out near Drewsteignton.
‘Hugh, please come and take some wine or ale. What are you doing here?’
‘Have a note.’
Baldwin smiled as he took the scrap from the taciturn man, and read slowly. Gradually, his smile faded, to be replaced with a cold scowl. ‘How is Simon now?’
‘Angry.’
‘And Meg?’
‘My lady is very anxious.’
‘She is right to be.’
‘Husband? What is it?’ Jeanne asked.
Quickly Baldwin explained what had happened to Simon. ‘He asks me to send for help from Stapledon.’
‘Is he in Exeter? The Bishop is so often away in London and elsewhere.’
‘I think he should be there,’ Baldwin said. ‘I will send Edgar to seek him out.’
Hugh nodded, then turned and would have gone, but Baldwin called him back.
‘Wait, man! Where are you going?’
‘Back to Lydford. Don’t know what the man’ll do next, but my master needs me. I was the only man he could send to you, but he’ll be in danger without me.’
‘Wait, Hugh. I will be with you in the time it takes to have a horse prepared. Jeanne, do not worry about me. I shall be back in a day or two, but this matter must be resolved. The idea that Simon and Margaret could have their house stolen from over them is appalling.’
Jeanne smiled, although with a trace of fear. ‘That is fine, Baldwin. But why should Despenser seek to hurt Simon?’
‘That, my love, I hope to learn before long,’ Baldwin said. ‘Sadly, I expect it is only a vengeful, brutish sport for him. Nothing more. Still, we shall inquire as best we may.’
Chapter Twenty
Monday before Feast of Gordianus et Epimachus24
Beaulieu
The King threw down the notes and swore again. It was enough to make Sir Hugh le Despenser want to hit him. This temperamental display was growing tedious. Christ’s teeth, he had better things to be doing than listening to the regular complaints of the King.
‘The shits! They think they can scare me into this pathetic peace! I should be negotiating with-’
‘There is no one with whom you may negotiate. Not now. If you wish to keep your territories in France, you have to remain constant to the French King, my Liege.’
‘Constant to him? The base-born bastard wants all my lands. Mark my words, Sir Hugh, he won’t be content until he holds the keys to the Tower itself! He complains of my behaviour, but he would scarcely dare to do so to my face! In God’s name, the man steals from me and then demands I pay him for his efforts!’