A Friar's Bloodfeud: (Knights Templar 20) (35 page)

He was so torn between rage and the sense of deep frustration that he had failed utterly at all he had attempted, that he
felt he must burst. And then he felt the sobs welling up with the tears, and he abandoned himself to the numbing terror. He
had no idea what he should do, to whom he could turn, or where he might run to. All he could think of was the marginal safety
of this church, and the fact of the altar cloth in his hands. They were real, they were substantial. With the tears falling
from his cheeks, he bent to the cloth to sniff it, and took in the clean odour of the fresh air from when it had been left
to hang in the open to dry. It smelled like freedom to him, sitting uncomfortably there on the cold church floor.

A freedom he might never know again. He screwed the thin material in his hands with his returning grief, and to his horror
heard a slight ripping sound. There was a moment of agonised suspense, and then he looked at the cloth.

He had torn it. He felt as though he had savaged his hopes of safety.

Baldwin rode into Fishleigh’s court with Simon and Edgar at either side.

The place was rather like a castle without the curtain wall. Set on top of a good-sized hillock, it had a ditch dug round
it to make attack more difficult, and the entrance was reached by a small drawbridge. Once over it they were in among the
bustle of the great house.

Servants were everywhere, fetching and carrying stores from one outer building to a large undercroft beneath what Baldwin
took to be the great hall. A number of men-at-arms were present, all of them apparently set upon readying their weapons. Rasping
could be heard from all sides as blades were whetted and honed, axes had their heads run over the
great stones, and bills were taken from their short hedging handles and thrust upon long staves so that they could be used
to slash at horses or their riders.

‘This is an encampment readying itself for war,’ Simon breathed.

‘I fear so,’ Baldwin said. He glanced about him with some anxiety. ‘I can see no sign of the master. Where is Sir Odo?’ he
asked a man nearby.

A boy was sent scurrying to the stables, and after a few minutes the genial figure of Sir Odo was hobbling towards them, his
scarred face twisted into a grin.

‘Sir Keeper, and Bailiff Simon as well? We are glad to see you, gentles. Would you take some wine with me?’

Once in the hall with him, Baldwin was able to tell him what they had learned up on the moor.

‘So you think that one of my men could have had something to do with this?’

‘We know that a man called Walter was up there with Ailward. A witness says he saw what looked like blood on the ground near
the two, and later the same day when he went up there, he found Ailward’s body. This man Walter may know something of what
was happening. It may be that there was a strip of red cloth on the ground, nothing more than that. But if it was the woman
from Meeth …’

‘I quite understand. I shall have him called to me here and you shall question him.’

‘So you are his master?’

‘Yes.’

Baldwin walked towards the door and peered out at the compound. ‘You are expecting Sir Geoffrey to attack you and your lands?’

‘He knows he has to. If he wants to iron out matters with
his lord, he’ll have to mollify the man somehow. One way to do that would be to take some extra lands. From anyone.’

‘The land on which his manor stands once belonged to Ailward’s family?’ Baldwin asked, returning to the seat where a cup of
wine waited for him.

‘That’s right. Until Ailward’s grandfather died, his was a moderately wealthy family. The Irish campaign put paid to that
– and then his father’s headstrong rush to join Mortimer again … he was killed up in the north, you know?’

‘We had heard. Some skirmish at Bridgnorth.’

‘That is right. A great waste. He was a good man.’ Sir Odo shook his head reflectively. ‘You know, I think that Ailward could
have made a good, competent squire. He had the physique for it. Strong torso, heavily built, with good arms and legs. He could
ride like a knight, and had the grace with a lance to charm a princess.’

‘His wife is a lovely woman,’ Simon commented.

‘Yes. He liked the better things in life. He was very badly affected by the loss of his manor. Very morose and dejected …
and then to be forced to become a menial … it was a hard fate for a man who had hoped for so much.’

Simon said, ‘Did he resent you too?’

‘Why would he do that?’ Odo asked with frank surprise.

‘Because you had a part of his inheritance.’

Sir Odo laughed. ‘On the contrary, that was all he was able to salvage. I made an arrangement with Sir Geoffrey that we would
share that part of the manor. It is fruitful, that area within the river, and half the money went to Ailward. I kept nothing.
But Geoffrey thought that we were sharing the profits.’

‘Why did Geoffrey agree to that?’ Baldwin demanded. ‘Surely he could have simply added it to his existing lands and pleased
his master …’

‘But not to his own profit,’ Odo said slyly, tapping his nose. ‘I appealed to his greed. So no, Ailward liked me and trusted
me. As he should have. I always helped him.’

‘Do you think that he could have been capable of killing Lady Lucy and throwing her into the mire on his land just to lay
the blame for the murder on Sir Geoffrey?’ Baldwin asked thoughtfully.

‘He would have been capable, I suppose. If he wanted to do that, though, wouldn’t he have picked a place where she would have
been easier to discover? Why choose a bog? She might have stayed there for ever, just as so many sheep and horses do each
year. And who would have killed him?’

‘Walter and he were there together. Could they have argued about the course of action they were about to take, perhaps come
to blows, and Walter killed him?’

Simon took up the idea. ‘So Walter took her body on his own shoulder and walked along the waste lands, round the back of Sir
Geoffrey’s lands, and then dropped her into the mire?’

‘It is scarcely likely, is it?’ Baldwin said reluctantly.

‘No. Not unless they had an ally in Sir Geoffrey’s camp,’ Simon mused. ‘Someone who would know the best way to avoid being
seen so near to the house.’

‘Any of the peasants would know all the less frequented routes, surely?’ Sir Odo said.

‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin said. ‘Could you have Walter brought here so that I may question him, please?’

With a good grace Sir Odo nodded and left them, adjuring them to be comfortable while they waited.

‘You have had an idea?’ Simon asked.

Baldwin nodded. ‘The assumption we made originally was that Sir Geoffrey had intended to torture Lady Lucy to
make her pass over her lands to him – but it now appears that Sir Geoffrey never pushed his master’s claim to the whole of
Ailward’s inheritance too strenuously – Sir Odo still keeps a hand on some parts. I just wonder: if Sir Odo could have taken
over Lady Lucy’s lands, it would have been as beneficial to him as it would have been for Sir Geoffrey, surely?’

‘I suppose so,’ Simon said. ‘What of the other men? Ailward could have allied himself with anyone, I reckon. He was bitter
and vengeful after losing his entire estate. Walter was probably involved, since he was there on the moor with Ailward and,
perhaps, Lady Lucy’s body, if Perkin was right. Nicholas le Poter could have been connected to them as well. Three men: Ailward,
Walter and Nicholas, all of them working together.’

‘A fair hypothesis.’ Baldwin nodded.

They were no nearer the truth, he thought, and walked to the door, his mind whirling with possibilities. But even as he began
to see another possible explanation – only dimly, but there, like a path that was glimpsed through the fog only to be concealed
again in a moment – his attention was caught by the shouting from outside the manor.

Sir Odo stood at the gate and stared at the body. ‘When was this?’ he demanded, all geniality flown.

‘Sir, I did all I could to protect him. It was impossible, though. He just went for them, and Sir Geoffrey cut him down.’

Sir Odo had seen the injuries which a sword could make often enough, and this was clearly a blow intended to kill. It had
sliced through the skull. He looked about him, estimating. ‘How many men were there with him?’

‘Six and twenty that I saw.’

‘Where are the others, then? All my men are scattered about the place – I can’t hope to throw him off the land with so few.
It would be impossible …’

Baldwin and Simon were in time to hear his last words as they joined Sir Odo in the yard, Edgar standing nearby and gazing
down at the body with interest. It was a fierce blow from a heavy sword; that much was clear. ‘What happened here?’ Baldwin
demanded.

‘This man was my sergeant over the river,’ Sir Odo said heavily. ‘This man, Walter, whom you wanted to meet, saw him cut down
by Sir Geoffrey himself, and carried the body all the way back here.’

‘You saw him killed?’

‘We were there this morning, him just quietly pottering about the place trying to make it liveable after their last attack,
me sitting and enjoying the sun, when we heard the horses.’

‘You had warning? Why didn’t the messenger come to me in time?’ Sir Odo growled.

‘They came up the river, and then charged up the main trackway from the ford, Sir Odo. I expect the lad was scared off and
won’t be found for some time,’ Walter said. ‘I was taken unawares because I expected the bastards to come from the east. We’d
started a palisade facing that way to protect us, but they just came pelting up the track and overwhelmed us. There were too
many for the two of us to achieve anything.’

‘And what then?’ Baldwin enquired, still staring at the man on the ground.

‘A man went inside the house, and he killed Robert’s bitch and her pups. That made him mad, and he just ran at the man with
his dagger. Sir Geoffrey was still on his horse, and as Robert passed him, he took a chop with his sword. Then he told me
to take the carcass away and never return.’

‘You look about done in,’ Sir Odo said. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘I can hold a sword, sir.’

‘Good. Go and find a mount.’

‘Sir Odo, I protest.’ Baldwin stood and stared at the older knight with serious eyes. ‘Attacking Sir Geoffrey can benefit
no one. Least of all Lord de Courtenay.’

‘Those murdering swines have killed my sergeant, Sir Baldwin! Look at him! Dead because of that arse-wipe from Monkleigh.
All he seeks is the expansion of his lands at all
times, nothing else. I will not have him taking over all the de Courtenay lands without a fight!’

‘Good. But I should recommend that you consolidate the position you presently have, and that you pull some men back from other
areas.’

‘Why? So he can invade any stretch without a battle? That hardly makes sense …’

‘As it stands, you have too few men, and they are dotted about in small packets. Any of them can be easily overwhelmed, just
as these two were,’ Baldwin said bluntly. ‘If you wish to waste your men’s lives, that is your responsibility, but I’d prefer
to save as many as possible.’

‘So would I!’ Sir Odo protested angrily. ‘But if I don’t respond to this provocation, what will he try next? He’ll slip a
dagger between me and my lands at Iddesleigh, and take them too, or …’

Baldwin irritably held up a hand. ‘You say that he would try to shave away your holdings?’

‘It has happened elsewhere. The barons are too scared to control the king or his
adviser
now that they see the bodies rotting on the gibbets up and down the land. What is the point of fighting to save your lands
if it loses you your life?’

‘But you would do that?’

Sir Odo set his jaw and looked away.

‘You had a pact with him over that last stretch of land. You say he agreed for his personal profit, but what would have happened
to him if his lord had learned of the deal? He would have been at risk of his life. Why would he agree to that for short-term
treasure?’

‘To calm local fears,’ Sir Odo said. ‘With Lady Lucy so worried about her position, and my master Sir John Sully nervous of
further encroachment on his territories, it was
clearly a good policy to calm any anxiety. I persuaded Sir Geoffrey that it would be to his master’s advantage too, if he
kept a sizeable portion separate.’

‘What made the situation change?’ Baldwin wondered. ‘Now he threatens war.’

‘All was well until Ailward died. His death seems to have precipitated action. Or maybe it was Lady Lucy – she was taken not
long before.’

‘Why should they have made Sir Geoffrey discard what had been a beneficial arrangement?’

‘I don’t know. Unless he thought that I was responsible for Ailward’s murder … and I swear I was not! I know nothing at
all about his death.’

Baldwin nodded. The man’s confusion was evident. ‘I still say that an attack now would be unproductive, Sir Odo.’

‘What else can I do, except leave the land to Sir Geoffrey and his men until a lawyer can fight my cause for me? That would
take time and treasure, Sir Baldwin. Better to resolve the question now.’

‘You must do as you see fit. But better to hold your hand a little while. Let them grow complacent, believing you will do
nothing, while you marshal your forces. And don’t use that man Walter.’

‘He’s the one with the most cause to desire revenge!’

‘He is also the man most likely to lose all reason. If you don’t want a feud on your hands, I should send him elsewhere.’

Hugh found the pain returning before they had travelled any distance. He walked with John and the reluctant Humphrey down
to the river ford on the way to Iddesleigh, where Humphrey stood staring at the waters dejectedly.

Leaning on his staff, Hugh grunted, ‘You don’t have to come with us.’

John shot him a look, and Hugh returned it belligerently. ‘I don’t care what he did in some convent ages ago. I just want
the man who killed Constance, and bringing Humphrey along won’t help me, will it?’

‘Shouldn’t he be handed over to the Church?’

‘Why? What good would that do us?’ Hugh demanded. ‘He’s just a wanderer. Let him go.’

‘What do you think?’ John asked Humphrey. ‘What does your heart tell you?’

‘You’re asking me?’ Humphrey asked. ‘I want to go away. I never meant to hurt anyone, and I didn’t want to leave my convent,
but now? I just want to go and find peace. I was happy here, but I can’t stay, so I have to run.’

John pulled a face and looked from one to the other. ‘It’s my duty to report him, Hugh. If I don’t, I’ll be in trouble later.
Yet I think he won’t err again. He’s a good enough fellow.’

‘Please!’ Humphrey said.

‘Go on! Just go, before I change my mind,’ John said. He clapped Humphrey on the shoulder. ‘Godspeed, Brother. May peace find
you, and may you come to rest in a safe and happy home at last when your wanderings are done.’

‘I … Godspeed, Brother. I don’t know what to … Thank you.’

Hugh watched him from narrowed eyes. When Humphrey slapped him on the upper arm, he nodded, but said no more. His mind was
bent on the man he knew he must speak to: Father Matthew, the man who had been in the lane outside his house a short while
before the place was fired.

Sir Odo reluctantly agreed to wait until he heard from Baldwin before he launched any counter-blow to the forces currently
occupying what he still called ‘his’ lands, but he was determined to prepare his men. Baldwin offered to speak to Sir Geoffrey,
and Sir Odo agreed to send Walter off to Iddesleigh.

‘That is a bargain. There are eight men at the church. If I send Walter there to hold the place against any attack, I can
bring two back. There’s no need for eight men there. Seven should be plenty, and the other two can come here and help …
I wonder if seven are needed. There’s hardly likely to be an attempt on the place while all this is going on …’ and he had
stalked off, muttering to himself about men and numbers.

‘There will be a lot of blood shed if we can’t stop this nonsense,’ Simon said. He sighed and put a hand to his brow.

Baldwin looked at him sympathetically. ‘And it hardly helps us to learn what happened to Hugh, does it? Still, perhaps there
may be a clue in among all this tangle.’

‘Sir Geoffrey, you think?’

Baldwin was quiet a moment. ‘I wish I thought so. No. I think that he is as unwitting as Sir Odo. Both seem to have been content
to live their lives quietly enough until this trouble came to them. All appears to have started with the death of Lady Lucy,
or at least her abduction. There was no dispute between the two manors until then …’

‘You have a thought, Sir Baldwin?’ Edgar enquired.

‘Only this: is all this dispute over the increase of the manors? Lady Lucy was taken and killed for her lands. In the meantime,
if Lord Despenser had heard that the property he had taken from Ailward was less than it should have
been, he would have been sure to tell Sir Geoffrey to acquire the rest. Ailward would have had a good motive to kill Lady
Lucy and leave the evidence with Sir Geoffrey to make it appear that he was guilty.’

Edgar interrupted, saying, ‘Aha, but so would Sir Geoffrey. If Despenser had learned of his arrangement with Sir Odo over
Ailward’s lands, he would have removed Geoffrey for incompetence and installed another in his place.’

‘That is true,’ Baldwin reflected. ‘If a dog bites you, you will be more cautious in future, and if a man shows he cannot
even read the evidence of the land’s records, would you trust his judgement a second time?’

‘Not unless he had some excellent excuse to offer.’

‘What do you say, Simon?’

‘Me? I should say that the pair of them deserve everything that is coming to them. Sir Geoffrey for his theft from his lord,
and for, I think, his attacks on the innocent. And Sir Odo for concealing what he had been doing from Lord Hugh de Courtenay.’

‘Why?’

‘It is clear enough what the two of them were doing: stealing a patch of land. Sir Geoffrey took the larger piece for Despenser,
and left the smaller part in the hands of Sir Odo. But I will bet that Sir Odo never told Sir John Sully or Lord de Courtenay.
No, I would think that he held that as a secret for himself, and from the moment that the two men took the land, they have
been sharing its profits, never mind Sir Odo’s story about passing his share to Ailward.’

‘So why fall out now?’ Baldwin wondered.

‘Perhaps one grew greedy. Thieves often fall out,’ Simon said dismissively.

‘Lady Lucy,’ Edgar said.

Baldwin shot a look at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘If one of the knights decided that this arrangement was too profitable not to duplicate, might not one of the two decide
to capture her, steal her lands and set himself up as a minor lord in his own right?’

‘It is possible,’ Baldwin admitted with a frown. ‘But how to do that? Offer a kindly opportunity, and provide her with his
hand in marriage?’

‘And when that was rejected, resort to the first plan: torture until she agreed to give up her territories, and then death,’
Edgar said.

Simon scowled. ‘Why now? That is what I cannot understand. Hugh is dead, and I think it must be because the men who killed
Ailward thought he might have seen them. I can understand that. But why do all this just now?’

‘Yes,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘Just as every fire needs a spark to start it, so too there must have been something that initiated
this chain of events. Once we know what that was, perhaps we’ll be closer to learning the full details.’

Hugh and John made their way along the roadway and then climbed the hill up to Iddesleigh. All the while they had a view of
the steeple in front of them, and Hugh was aware of a growing feeling of nervousness as he approached it.

He did not fear killing a man, or being killed. That was of no concern to him. Someone had murdered his wife, and deserved
punishment. Even if he died in the attempt, he wouldn’t care. The man who ended Constance’s life had gone a long way to ending
Hugh’s own. Hugh would find him and kill him.

But he was scared. He was scared of not finding the man;
of failing to kill before he was himself killed; even of finding the wrong man and executing an innocent who’d had nothing
to do with his wife’s murder. All were dreadful thoughts, the last possibly the worst of all, and he found himself struck
with a strange feeling, for him, of irresolution and doubt.

His bruises and wounds were giving him more pain now as he climbed the hill to the church, but his gradual slowing was not
caused by them; it was the feelings of misgiving and uncertainty that seemed to sap at his strength as he went. By the time
he had reached the top of the hill, he had little confidence.

‘Hugh?’ John murmured. ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘I don’t know what I can do. What if I’m wrong?’ Hugh explained what he had remembered about Constance’s seeing Matthew outside
his house all those days ago.

‘You don’t have to kill the priest, Hugh. Just make sure you understand what he was doing there. And who was with him,’ John
added thoughtfully.

‘You won’t stop me if I find the murderer and kill him?’ Hugh asked suddenly.

John looked at him, then glanced westwards towards his sister’s manor of Meeth. ‘I swear I won’t. If you fail, I shall strike
for you, Hugh.’