gave me a choice: join them or die. I chose life.” His lip twisted, as if he recognised the irony of the words given his present position. “I rode into their ambush and would have died – there were too many of them for me to defend myself. I tried, but it was pointless. I did not yield to them, but in the end I gave them my word that I would live with them and they swore to accept me. They allowed me to live, and I agreed to help them. In exchange for my life.”
The bailiff nodded. He had heard of penniless warriors joining wandering bands, searching for new identities and trying to survive by any means. “Why kill, though? Why murder so many?”
The coughing was worse, becoming more tortured as the man’s face grew paler and he began to sweat. His voice was laboured, as though his throat was parched. “We killed for food and money… Those we robbed the other day were wealthy… They were only merchants… What is there for a knight without a lord? Without land, without money? I had lost everything when the outlaws overtook me… Why not join them? What else was there for me to do? I could have continued to Cornwall, but there was no guarantee of a living there… At least with the outlaws I knew I was accepted…”
“But why did you kill the abbot?”
“What abbot?” The words brought on another fit of coughing, and while waiting for it to stop, Simon watched the man with disgust leavened with pity. Pity for the pain of his slow death, but disgust at the contempt he showed for any man born to a lower class, and the assumption that mere possession of a sword conferred the right to kill.
When the spasm passed, Simon said, “The abbot you burned – murdered – in the woods. Why did you kill him?”
“Me? Kill a man of God!” For a moment there was a look of surprise, quickly replaced by rage. The huge figure heaved upright and glared, so suddenly that the bailiff could not help flinching.
“Me? Kill a holy man!”
“You and your friend took him and burned him to death,” Simon continued doubtfully.
“Who dares say that I did? I…”
Even as he opened his mouth to give a furious denial, there came a fresh eruption of blood from his mouth and nose, and his words were drowned as he fell to his side, clutching at his throat in a vain attempt to breathe and thrashing in his desperate search for air and life, his eyes remaining fixed on Simon. There was no fear there, just a total anger, as if at the injustice of the accusation. The bailiff sat and watched, no longer with any feeling, merely with a faint interest in how long it would take the man to die. In his mind he could see the burned corpses still, the blackened arms hanging from the wagons, and the little bundle of rags in the moors, the girl killed so far from her home. He felt that all his sympathy was expended now, spent on the knight’s victims.
The end was not long in coming, and when the spirit had left, Simon stood and looked at the body with detached contempt, before glancing up at the other two, and saying, “Get the dead outlaws collected together and have them buried. We’ll take our own dead back with us, but these can lie here unshriven.”
While Black shouted to the men from the posse and gave his orders, the bailiff stared down at the body. Even after killing so many, the knight had denied harming the abbot. Why? God would know his crimes, and Rodney must have known he was dying – why deny the murder? Was it possible that he told the truth, that he had not killed de Penne?
When he turned and studied the remaining prisoners, his face was set in a frown of consideration. The youngest, a sallow man with pale hair and skinny appearance who looked to be only two or three and twenty years old, stood shuffling his feet uncomfortably under his gaze, and as Black finished issuing his instructions, Simon pointed to him and beckoned. The youth nervously glanced at his companions before cautiously walking over to stand some six feet from the bailiff.
“Hah!” Tanner gave a gasp of amusement. “How did you pick him?” When Simon threw him a quick look of incomprehension, the constable carried on, “He’s the man who hit you on the head – the one who was with the horses.”
Now that the youth came closer, Simon could see that his thinness was due to undernourishment. His high cheeks stood out prominently in his fleshless face, and his light blue eyes were sunken and looked watery, as if all the colour had faded away. His gaze was shifty, looking all round, at Simon’s shoes, at his shoulders, over behind him, and only occasionally meeting his gaze before flitting away again in his fear.
“What’s your name?” Simon asked, and was surprised at the harshness in his own voice.
“Weaver, sir.”
“Where are you from?”
“From Tolpuddle, sir.”
Simon looked at Black, who shrugged with an expression of disinterest. He looked back at Weaver.
“How long have you been here, lad?”
He seemed to want to avoid Simon’s eyes and stared at his feet. “A month.”
“How many have you killed in that time?”
He looked up with a flare of defiance glinting in the blue of his eyes. “Only one, and that because he would’ve killed me otherwise!”
“What about the merchants? Do you say you weren’t involved in their deaths?”
Weaver stared down at his feet again, as if the brief flame of anger had used all of his energy. “No. I was looking after the horses.”
“Do you think that makes it better? You were in the gang that killed them all, weren’t you?” he held up his hands in a gesture of disgust. “How many were killed?”
Weaver’s glance dropped. He seemed to have lost interest in the conversation. “I don’t know. Ten, maybe twelve.”
“Where…” Simon wiped a tired hand over his eyes. How could this man have helped kill so many? His voice was low and sad when he continued. “Where were you and the band before that?”
“Over near Ashwater.” he said sullenly.
Simon looked at the hunter again, but he showed no more interest in Ashwater than he had in Tolpuddle. “When did you leave there?”
“I don’t know, maybe a week ago.”
“So when did you get to Copplestone?”
“Where?”
“Copplestone. Where you killed the abbot.”
“What abbot? I don’t know nothing about that!”
“When did you leave Ashwater?”
“Like I said, about a week ago.”
“Where is Ashwater?”
All of a sudden Simon became convinced of the man’s honesty – he was telling the truth because he knew he would die anyway. He had lost any interest in deception now, he was simply uninterested; all he wanted to do was get back to his friends and find some peace with his own kind before he had to face the rope.
“Over west, north of Launceston,” he heard the man say, and heard the breath hiss in Black’s teeth as he made to move forward, but Simon squeezed his hand on his arm and the hunter stayed still, glaring at Weaver.
“You’re lying, boy. You wouldn’t’ve been able to get to Copplestone in time,” Black snarled.
“I don’t know about Copplestone.” he snapped, then looked at Simon. “I’m going to swing, sir. Why should I lie? I don’t care what you think, but I had nothing to do with no abbot.”
Simon’s mind was reeling. It wasn’t these men then? So who had killed de Penne? He gathered his thoughts: the monks had said that there had been two men, hadn’t they? What if…
“When did you meet the… the knight?” he asked, his voice faltering.
“Him?” Weaver’s voice showed disgust. “Rodney of Hungerford? We only found him a few days ago. We tried to catch him. He rode straight into the middle of us, but he held us off when we attacked; he even killed our leader. He had money but there was little we could do about it. In the end we let him join us, because he could fight.”
“Where’s his friend?” said Simon, guessing.
“What friend?”
“He was with a man.”
“He was alone when we found him.”
