No Law in the Land: (Knights Templar 27) (17 page)

There was a light mist over the ground as she dropped down towards the Exe, and she felt a chill. It had been a bitterly cold
night, but then she always did feel the cold. It was so strange to experience that again now, after the last months of sleeping
with her husband always at her side to warm her. In Baldwin’s house she had felt dreadfully uncomfortable, but that was only
because her husband was not with her. Now she was cold and tired, but that was no surprise. How could she sleep while poor
Peter was in Rougemont Castle, suffering from the freezing temperatures, wet, hungry and uncomfortable? It would be unthinkable
that she should remain in Baldwin’s bed while Peter was there.

From somewhere there came a clatter, and she stopped to peer behind her. The mist was thicker here, and it was impossible
to see anything, but she felt sure that she had heard a hoof striking stones. There shouldn’t be anybody out at this time
of the morning, though. The city gates wouldn’t open for ages yet. She was only up this early because she was desperate to
be closer to her husband. There was no reason for anyone else to be out on horseback, surely.

She felt a sudden sensation of absolute coldness and wondrous fear. It was hard even to turn back to face the road ahead,
she was so
nervous of whoever might be behind her, but she stiffened her resolve with the thought of Peter, and urged her horse onwards.

The road here wound about the river most of the way down to the city itself. At the bottom there was the great bridge, which
gave on to the west gate. That was where she had intended to cross the river, and there was a little inn at the western edge
of the bridge where she had hoped to rest a while before entering the city as the gates opened, but there was a good mile
or two before she would come to the bridge, and very few people between here and there. If she was attacked, there was little
likelihood that she would be able to call for help with any hope of success. No, better by far that she should hurry herself
and make her way to the bridge.

She was about to whip the horse into greater efforts when she heard a voice.

‘Mistress? Are you all right? No one should be about so early in the morning.’

She cast a look back, fretful, but sure that she recognised the voice.

‘Don’t you remember me?’ he asked. He was a lawyerly-looking fellow, she thought. Hardly threatening. He wasn’t a hulking,
strong man with arms like tree trunks, rather he was fine boned, from the look of him. Quite slender. He wore a cloak that
smothered his shoulders, and a broad-brimmed hat that obscured his features, while a cloth swaddled his throat and mouth against
the early-morning chill. He looked the sort of man she could imagine her husband bringing home for wine and food. But there
was something.

‘I am sorry, master. You have the better of me. I do not know you.’

‘Of course you do,’ he said with a smile. ‘I know your father. He is Simon Puttock, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, sire. But who are—’

‘Don’t you recall? You met me in his house at Lydford, just a little before I took it from him for my master, Sir Hugh le
Despenser,’ William atte Wattere said, grasping her wrist.

His face came into sharp focus suddenly. She remembered entering her father’s hall and seeing this man and Simon coming to
blows with their swords. In the horror of the memory, she gasped, and then opened her mouth to scream.

‘If you’ll be a good maid, you may just live to see him again. Misbehave, and you’ll die. Quickly, and without warning.’

Jacobstowe

Agnes had not rested. Her night had been spent alone with Bill’s body, alternately weeping and praying. She was sure in her
mind that she would meet him again, when she went to heaven, but the thought that she must now endure her life without his
companionship and lazy grin was so hard to accept.

The idea that he had suddenly been stolen away from her … Her lovely man was dead. His spirit had fled. It was so difficult
to understand how God could have allowed it to happen. When the priest came to try to comfort her, she had listened to his
empty, foolish words, and had slowly closed the door on him. What could the man say to her, to her who had lost her darling
husband? The priest had never known the love of a man for a woman. He had no concept of the bond that two people could feel,
especially one that was mortared by the sharing of the creation of a child. He had no idea how love of that sort could elevate
a person’s
soul
. And so he had not even the faintest understanding of the utter
loss
that the death implied.

As she grew aware of the sunlight filtering through the shutters over her windows, she forced herself to her feet. There was
still her work to be done. Mercifully Ant was still. He had slept all through after crying himself to sleep on her lap as
she sobbed. It was natural for a child to understand the misery and devastation of such a loss. Entirely natural.

She went outside, pulling the shutters open, then scattered some grain for the chickens, letting them free from the coop,
and took some scraps to the pig, before returning to the house and setting about starting the fire.

It was a miserable morning, and the day would grow worse, she knew. But she must do all she could and keep the house running.
There was nothing else for it. It was what Bill would have wanted.

‘Mistress?’

She was feeding Ant when the knock came, and soon Hoppon was in the room with her, his cap in his hand, while other faces
she recognised peered at her from outside. Why did all these churls live, when God had taken her own precious darling?

‘You’ll be needing someone to take Bill up to the church, we reckoned. You want for us to help?’

She looked at him with fleeting incomprehension. There seemed no reason to take Bill anywhere, and then her mind allowed her
to recall that he was dead. Anger flooded her, anger at God, at Hoppon, at the world – but most of all, anger at her husband.
How could he dare to die and leave her and Ant all alone? How
dare
he!

‘Yes.’ She rose, shivering, and suddenly felt as though she must fall down. Her legs seemed as insubstantial as feathers.
‘Yes, please help me,’ she said, in a voice bereft of all but misery.

Sourton Down

Up at the edge of the moors, Simon felt more cheerful. It was always good to be here on the high ground, looking down on God’s
own country. West he could see Cornwall, with Bodmin gleaming in a burst of sunshine, while northwards was the lowering mass
of Exmoor.

‘So what’ll you do, then?’ Sir Richard asked as they breasted the hill’s western flank and could stare ahead towards Meldon
and Oakhampton.

‘I think I have little option. I’ll ride on to where the bodies were all found, up near Jacobstowe, and then see if I can
learn anything about the men who died. With that sort of money involved, somebody must have seen or heard something. If a
small gang of felons took it all, they’ll have been celebrating ever since.’

‘True enough. There never was an outlaw born who had the sense of a child,’ Sir Richard said. ‘A man would have thought that
most of them would realise that sprinkling coins about the wenches in a tavern, when all their lives they’ve been as wealthy
as a churl on alms, would make a few people suspicious. But they never do.’

‘Are you riding straight back to Lifton?’ Simon asked. He felt a slight trepidation. The idea of spending too much time with
the coroner was alarming, because the man was undoubtedly one of the
very worst he had ever met when it came to giving him sickly hangovers. On the other hand, he was a loyal, amiable character
with a shrewd mind, when it was free of thoughts of wine, women and food.

‘I was thinking about that. I wouldn’t want to leave you all alone. Performing an inquest on a matter such as this is hazardous,
my friend. And you are all alone.’

‘I am here!’ protested the man behind them.

This was the clerk whom Cardinal de Fargis had commanded to join Simon in order to record all he learned. Brother Mark was
a skinny little fellow, but he had the humorous face of an imp. He reminded Simon of some of the figures that adorned the
church at Lydford. But he did not merit consideration as protection against a man such as the one who could beat a reeve to
death, let alone a gang that could kill a band of nineteen travellers.

‘Yes. I would be glad of someone to help defend me,’ Simon admitted.

‘What of me?’ Brother Mark asked plaintively.

Sir Richard sniffed. ‘I suppose it is fair to say that since this money was the king’s, and was deposited with his officers,
it is reasonable to suppose that I would be failing in my duties to him were I not to aid you in this inquest.’

‘I can do that!’ Mark stated with vigour.

Simon agreed. ‘It is plainly the king’s service. It would be to his advantage were you to help me in this matter.’

Sir Richard nodded, looked westwards reflectively, and then threw a glance at the clerk behind them. ‘What? No comments? No
arguing? No protestations of your ability to help us?’

Mark gave him a look of contemptuous disgust. ‘I see no further reason to waste my breath.’

‘Good. Perhaps the rest of our journey will be all the more peaceful,’ Sir Richard said with a chuckle. ‘In the meantime,
we should hurry ourselves if we are to make our way to a house in time for dark. Simon, you know this area better than me,
I am sure. Which is our best direction?’

Simon pointed. ‘Straight up to Oakhampton, thence to Abbeyford. If there is anything to be learned, it will be up there.’

Their journey took them a little past the middle of the morning.
Before noon they were already ambling along the roadway through the woods.

‘A good old wood, this,’ the coroner remarked, looking about him with an appreciative eye. ‘I would like a place like this
myself. A man could make a lot of money from it.’

‘Yes. The people about here have good incomes,’ Simon agreed. ‘The charcoal burners make good use of it, and there is always
enough for the coppicers to gather.’

That was obvious. No matter where they looked, little glades had been harvested. There was little that would go to waste in
a wood like this. Even as they rode along, they could see wisps of smoke from some of the charcoal burners’ ovens. Simon glanced
about him, and then picked a broad track that led them in among the trees.

The path was straight at first, and then curved to the left and round to the right until they were almost riding back the
way they had come. At the end of their path there was an area of an acre or so, in which the trees had been cut back. Coppicing
was an ancient art, and Simon could see that this little clearing was well maintained. The coppicer would cut back the stems
from the trees initially when they had reached seven or eight feet in height. Naturally the trees would try to grow back by
thrusting up with two or even three more stems, and after six or seven years the coppicer would return to harvest these too,
and so the round of harvesting would continue. Each year enough poles would be taken for making handles, for building, for
cropping to make faggots for fires, or for charcoal.

At the far edge of the clearing there was a charcoal burner with his tent. When making an oven to roast the poles for charcoal,
it was essential that the burner remained at the site all day and night, watching and carefully helping the fire to cook the
coals without ever catching light. A week’s work in cutting, and another in carefully building the fire could be wasted by
a little carelessness. Simon had worked with charcoal burners in his time, and knew how difficult it was to make a good oven.
The burners would build a large pyre of wood, with a chimney in the middle. About this large circular oven they would then
construct a massive earthwork, first smothering all the wood with ferns, and then layering soil over the top, until the whole
heap was a man’s height and twice a man’s height in diameter, with only a small hole in the top. At last when all was ready,
and it
was plain that there were no other holes from which any smoke could leak, they would drop burning coals down into the midst
of the chimney, and once the fire was well caught they would block the top with more ferns and earth.

That was the fascinating time for Simon. He would watch as the smoke started to leach out from the soil. Sometimes there was
a disaster, and a hole would appear in the earth, and when that happened, the burner would quickly shovel more soil over the
top, sometimes sprinkling water too, to keep the soil together. Otherwise the entire crop of charcoal would merely burn like
wood, and the burner would find only ash remaining when he opened the oven.

Today there was a fine smoke coming from the sides of the oven. It was a perfect-looking pile, Simon thought. Once the smoke
had stopped fighting its way from the chamber inside, and the whole oven had cooled, the burners would leave it for some days
before breaking into it to retrieve the cooled coals from within. That was more than a week and a half away for this one,
by the look of the smoke.

‘God speed, friend,’ Simon said.

Charcoal burners had a reputation for being surly, but in Simon’s experience it was generally the result of living so many
months each year away from all other people. They tended to spend all their time in the woods, and the chance of meeting another
human was remote.

This man was not like the others he had known, though. At the sight of Simon and the others, he grinned broadly and doffed
his cap respectfully. ‘Masters, you are welcome.’

‘Master, God give you a good day,’ Simon responded.

‘Here he always does, master,’ the burner said with a laugh. ‘He gives me water to drink, food to eat, and all the wood I
need for my work. What more could a man ask?’

‘You are alone?’ Sir Richard asked.

‘Aye – but there are others in the woods within a short distance,’ the burner said, and his smile became a little fixed, as
though he was wondering whether these men had come to rob him.

Simon soon soothed him. ‘Friend, I am sent with the good coroner here to learn more about the deaths of a number of men here
some weeks ago.’

‘You’re a coroner? You weren’t here for the inquest.’

Sir Richard shook his head. ‘I am the coroner for Lifton, for the
king. However, there is a religious aspect to this attack, and Cardinal de Fargis has asked us to enquire into the details.’

‘Those poor travellers? Ah, that was a bad business.’

‘Did you see them?’ Simon asked.

‘When the coroner came, I went to witness it. I thought it was right, you know? Seemed wrong for the folks there to have all
been killed and no one go to tell their story for them.’

‘Were there not many there at the inquest?’

‘Oh, most of us went in the end. But people weren’t going to at first, because of nervousness.’

‘Why?’ Simon asked.

‘Why do you think? There was a man there, a priest, I think. He was a crophead. They’d cut his eyes out. Coroner said it might
have been before he was killed. Who’d do a thing like that? A bunch of outlaws big enough to kill so many must have been a
large band indeed. And any man who goes to try to help catch such people is likely himself to be killed. No one wants to take
risks. But we who live here in the trees have an appreciation of how to treat people. And we have strength in our numbers.’

Sir Richard nodded. ‘Yes, and the best thing is, you’re all used to working with your hands and sharp tools, eh? Any felon
trying his luck with coppicers would find himself down one arm! Eh?’

‘Well, there is that,’ the man said equably.

Sir Richard grinned and looked about them. He knew perfectly well that there were other coppicers near, and almost certainly
all watching him. ‘You can tell them to loosen their bowstrings, friend.’

‘I expect you were asked much about the night of the attack?’ Simon said.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you hear any attacking men that night? Passing up this road, say? Returning in a hurry?’

‘No, there was nothing. The bastards must have come from north of here.’ The man was very convincing in his certainty.

‘Can you show us where the folks were all found?’ Simon asked.

The man eyed him and the others for a moment, and then gave a nod. ‘Yes, master. Follow me.’

Furshill

The journey to Simon’s house was at least a half-morning’s ride, while that to Exeter was a little longer. Baldwin spent the
early morning rushing about gathering necessary items ready for his journey, bellowing orders to the servants and his wife,
before taking a late breakfast with Edgar.

‘Do you go to Simon’s house with all the speed you can muster,’ he said. ‘I am depending upon your speed, Edgar. You must
tell Simon about his daughter’s husband and her predicament. Tell him that the sheriff is an ally of bloody Despenser, and
that the man is no friend to Simon. You can also tell him that Edith’s father-in-law heard the sheriff say that it was her
fault his son was in gaol.’

‘Are you sure Simon should hear that?’ Jeanne asked quietly. ‘He may not take heed of caution if he’s told that.’

‘I can calm him when he reaches Exeter,’ Baldwin said. ‘For now, I deem it essential that he understands the full danger of
the situation. Tell him all that, Edgar, and then ride with him.’

Jeanne said, ‘Would it not be better for you to go to Simon, Baldwin? Then you could try to dissuade him from any rashness.’