With another sigh she knew that it was pointless to speculate. Her father had only been a farmer, a local man called to the posse. So Simon was a bailiff, so what? Maybe it meant he would soon be promoted again, taken away from the risks of laws and control. Would he be in any more danger than her father had been? She thoughtfully glanced around the room again, already beginning to estimate costs of removal and assessing what could be left behind.
Simon watched her with a degree of trepidation as he followed her gaze around the room. He could easily sense her feelings, and he knew he would do anything to stop her being depressed – even if it meant his rejecting the position at Lydford. If she felt that she could not be happy at the castle, they would have to stay here, at their home. It could wreck his prospects, but he had decided, when he chose her for his wife, that she was the most important thing in his life. And any job could be no substitute for her happiness.
So it was with absolute delight that he saw her eyes light on him again, with a calm acceptance. He knew without asking that she had chosen, that she had accepted.
The next two days went by in a whirl as Margaret began organising the move and arranging for a wagon to help them take their belongings. Hugh was kept busy with the constant stream of visitors who arrived to offer their congratulations. The news had spread fast from the time that he and the bailiff had returned, apparently, and there seemed to be no end to the farmers and landowners who kept coming to pass on their best wishes.
It always astonished Simon how quickly news could travel in such an empty area. The whole of Devonshire only contained a few thousand souls, and yet it seemed that no sooner had he been told than the whole of the county was aware. He even received a message from Walter Stapledon, the bishop of Exeter, expressing pleasure at his new position.
But Simon soon began to fret at being kept indoors by the continuous flow of visitors. After having to travel, and now with these guests arriving at every spare minute of the day, he felt as if his life was not his own. Three times he had promised to play with his daughter, only to have to stop to see another man come to offer his congratulations, and she had made him swear that he would spend a whole uninterrupted day with her after the last cancellation. He complied, mainly to halt the inevitable flow of tears.
He had not even been able to get time to go for a ride, and at last, on the third day after the announcement had become public knowledge, the day he was to ignore all visitors and stay at home with Edith, he saddled his horse early, before she rose, and went out for a ride to loosen his taut muscles and get a brief spell of freedom before honouring his promise.
It was still early when he left, only a little after dawn, and he started out slowly, warming up his horse and himself before taking any serious exercise. They rode quietly up the hill behind his house, following the old tracks between the fields in the early morning chill. The night had brought more rain and he had to splash through puddles and small streams as he made his way along the narrow tracks that bordered the fields and woods. At the top of the hill he turned west and followed the ridge for a couple of miles until at last he was up on the tall spine of land that pointed towards the southern moors, a straight and easy canter. He paused a minute in anticipation, he and his horse standing still, with a slight glow lighting his face from their ride so far. Then, with a grin like a naughty boy, he peered round behind him to see that no one was watching, and whipped his horse into a gallop.
They raced down the lane, the heavy horse pounding through the muddy water that lay all around, and splashing it liberally over both of them, both revelling in the sudden burst of energy and enjoying the sensation of rushing furiously, as quickly as possible over the rough track, feeling the cold wind tugging at their hair and snatching at Simon’s cloak as they went. They charged down, hammering over the lane like a knight and his mount rushing into battle, with no thought for anything but the pleasure of the race.
At the far end of the road they slowed, Simon reining in gently to slow the great horse and stop the animal from over-tiring himself, and gradually eased into a comfortable walk. By the time they got to Coppiestone, a small village that lay hugging the edge of the moor and forest land of Dartmoor, the only evidence of their gallop was the broad grin of sheer pleasure on the bailiff’s face. They sedately clattered into the hamlet. It was an ancient vill lying some four miles out to the west of Crediton, at the fork in the road to Oakhampton where one arm led to the north and up to Barnstaple. But there were also several small lanes leading south, and he turned into one and wandered aimlessly for a few miles, his eyes fixed on the moors ahead.
The local superstitions had always implied that the moors were unfriendly to people, and from here, looking up at them, he could understand why men should feel that – they seemed to be watching him as he rode. Certainly they were impressive, looming like great beasts on the horizon ahead, but they were without the aura of focused viciousness that he could sense in wolves and other wild animals. There was a malevolence there, he could sense that, but it was the uncaring, unfeeling cruelty of a vast being that feared nothing for smaller creatures. It seemed to him as he rode that the moors noted him as a man might an ant, and, like a man, they seemed to know they could crush him without noticing.
Shuddering at the thought, he quickly turned off, away from the moors and to the east. He would go as far as Tedburn St Mary, then north and back home.
Now, feeling more relaxed after burning off some of his frustration, and comfortable as he sat on his horse, he let his mind wander. At first his thoughts were only of the coming move and the change in his circumstances that it would bring, but then, as he swayed along from side to side on the back of his horse, he started to think about the people he had met on the road.
He was interested in Sir Baldwin. The knight seemed so worldly, so experienced, that he was fascinating to a man like Simon who had never been more than a few days’ travel from Crediton. Simon longed to get him to talk about his travels, to discover where he had been, what he had seen, what battles he had fought in – because he obviously had fought in several. He had the arrogance and pride of a warrior; even though it seemed to be kept on a close rein and almost hidden, Simon had felt it. But there was a kindliness and humility about the knight as well that seemed oddly out of place in the bailiff’s experience. Knights were rarely humble or pious – and if they were it was usually a calculating godliness. It had more to do with ensuring salvation in the face of previous offences committed against God than with any desire to follow Christ’s teachings.
At Tedburn St Mary he turned off to take the road back to Crediton, and a sudden similarity between this road and the one near Furnshill made his thoughts move to the party of monks. He was still thinking about the frightened abbot when he arrived back at his house.
He was surprised to see a horse tethered at his door when he arrived. His eyebrows rose in vague interest as he took his horse into the stable before going to see who it could be – no doubt it was only another visitor passing on his good wishes – and he had just removed the saddle and taken off the blanket underneath when Hugh came in and took over.
“Man here to see you.”
“Oh,” Simon glanced over his shoulder towards the house and shrugged disinterestedly. “Someone else asking how I am and when I go to Lydford?”
“No, it’s a man from Blackway. Someone’s died over there last night.”
Simon stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then balled the blanket and threw it at him as he ran for the house.
Inside, a man leapt up as soon as he entered the hall. He had been sitting on a bench with his back to the door, obviously warming himself by the fire, and he knocked over a pot of ale when the bailiff strode in, letting out an audible groan in mortification – though whether at seeming clumsy or at the loss of the beer, Simon could not be sure.
His visitor was a slender, almost effeminate youth with pale and thin features under a shock of thick, mousey-coloured hair. The face was almost hatchet-sharp, but without any hint of deviousness or weasel cunning – it was simply the kind of face created for a slim man who would never be a soldier; this was one who would not go away to fight, this man would spend his life in the rural safety of the priest’s house, probably never going more than fifteen miles from the town in his whole life. His face seemed to redden under the fixed gaze of the bailiff, not from fear but from his embarrassment at knocking the pot over, almost as if he expected to be shouted at, and Simon grinned at him to calm his obviously frayed nerves. When he smiled back, Simon was sure he recognised him – there was something about his thin, colourless mouth as it stretched tight across his face. Where had he seen that face before? Of course! He worked for Peter Clifford, the priest at Crediton. This was one of his stablemen, wasn’t it? Simon walked to the bench and indicated that the young man should be seated before sitting himself and considering the man again.
“It is Hubert, isn’t it?”
