discovered.
He paused, concentrating hard, trying to see through the gloom, but the darkness was thickened by the smoke from a multitude of fires, which hung in thin streamers like watchful wraiths.
Suddenly feeling a chill which had nothing to do with the cold of the night, he hobbled back to Peter Clifford’s house as quickly as his game ankle would allow.
Margaret watched with fascination as Walter Stapledon held them to his face again, reading the paper carefully.
She had never been able to read herself: being a farmer’s daughter there was no point in her father investing in her education. As soon as she was old enough she would be married and become a mother. Her training was complete by the time she was fourteen, for by then she could brew and bake, and had learned the basic skills of looking after children. Simon was able to read and write, and it was not that skill which astonished her: it was the forked piece of metal which Stapledon held to his nose while he squinted at the page.
Catching sight of her expression, Stapledon smiled as he set the paper down. “It is an old man’s weakness to need help with those bits and pieces of his body which do not function as they once did.”
“But what does it do?” she demanded.
“It was designed for old and feeble men like me who find their eyes are not as efficient as they once were. I used to be able to see as clearly as you can, but now I need these two glasses held in their frame to make the words look bigger.”
“How do they do it?”
He laughed and passed them to her. “I look on it as a gift from God – a miracle that makes my work easier. I do not pretend to understand how! I merely accept them.”
The door slammed as Baldwin and Edgar returned from checking on their horses. “Is Simon not back yet?” the knight said, glancing at Stapledon with his eyebrows raised in faint alarm.
The Bishop shook his head. “Does it matter? He seems a strong enough man, more than a match for any footpad.”
“Yes. He must be all right.” Baldwin lowered himself into a seat and watched Margaret playing with the spectacles with the delight of a child, studying the woodwork on the table, the page before the Bishop, even the skin on the back of her hand, while the Bishop looked on indulgently.
For all his expressed confidence, the knight was concerned. Simon had been so out of sorts for the last few days that his disappearance after their meal was cause for worry. It was not that Baldwin expected his friend to harm himself intentionally. Simon was in no way capable of so foolish an act, and suicide for someone relatively God-fearing was unthinkable. No, Baldwin was not anxious on that score – but he was nonetheless unquiet. There were many dangers in a town during darkness, even at the lowest level of simply falling down in a darkened street. Baldwin had once found a man in the gutter. From the indications, it was clear what had happened: the man had tripped over a drunk at the roadside, but the unfortunate fellow had struck his head, then rolled into a ditch full of muddy water. Unconscious, he had drowned. The drunk had not even woken.
And then there were thieves. Even a tiny town like Crediton had its undesirable element, and these were augmented at present by the mercenaries – a group who were used to killing as a way of life.
Poor Simon. He had enjoyed a life full of success and rewards, and yet the taste of all had turned sour in his mouth with the death of his son. Baldwin had seen it happen to others, but rarely so strongly as with his friend. Most, when a child died, had to shrug and try to produce a replacement. There was little point in worrying unduly about the ones who died, not when so many remained, needing help to survive.
But Simon had pinned all his hopes on the boy. After so many years of waiting for a child who could live more than a few weeks or days, for all their children apart from Edith and Peterkin had died very young, there was the double agony of knowing that his heir too was gone. Simon must have a son to allow his family to continue, and Baldwin could all too easily comprehend the agony of knowing that there was nobody to carry on the name. He had the same pain himself.
“My lord! Bishop!” The door was flung open, and now Roger burst in, wild-eyed and panting.
“Calm yourself, lad!” Stapledon ordered, staring at his young rector. “What in the Lord’s name is the matter?”
“Is… is it my husband?” Margaret stuttered, paling with a quick intuition. “What is it? Where is he?”
“Your husband?”
Baldwin shook his head. “Simon went out to walk off his meal, that is all. What have you seen?”
“Sir, I don’t know – but I’m sure something’s going on in the alley by the jail. There’s noise like a lot of men talking low. I really think you should send someone to investigate.”
“Why?” asked Baldwin. “Maybe it was a party on their way home from a tavern.”
“No, sir. They weren’t walking, they were keeping quiet, like men planning a riot.” Roger told them about the sounds near the alley’s entrance, and Baldwin’s face hardened.
“Bishop, I think I should check on this. There’s no way to tell, of course, but we have heard today that some of the mercenaries might be plotting to remove their captain. If they are, I do not want them to kill him here in Crediton.”
“No, of course not,” Stapledon patted Margaret’s hand. “See? It’s nothing to do with your husband.”
She smiled wanly, and looked away, but not before Baldwin had seen the fear in her eyes. “Edgar? Get Hugh. I think he’s asleep in the buttery again. And tell Peter where we’re going. Ask him for two of his men, just in case we need help, and tell them to bring weapons. Then come back here.” As soon as he finished Edgar disappeared, and they heard a sleepy voice complaining at being woken. “You, Roger. You must come with us and show us where you heard this noise.”
It was the faint awareness that something was not right which propelled him on. He had no doubt that his friend was able to protect himself: Simon Puttock, he knew, was a capable man in a fight. Baldwin had seen the proof of that often enough – usually the knight felt it was his task to control his friend when Simon became too heated, for the latter was apt to lose his temper, much like the red-headed men from the north whom Baldwin looked on as mad. The bailiff was a staunch ally in a fight, but he had been gone for a long time, and Baldwin felt the same trepidation that agonized Margaret.
It took little time to get to the alley, and Roger pointed at it with his stick. He could see that the tall knight was concerned, and his very silence indicated how perturbed he was at the disappearance of his friend.
Baldwin stared frowning into the alley, and then marched in without a word. The others followed him in silence, only to halt. Some little distance away they could hear the muffled sound of crying, which suddenly rose and was cut off.
Rollo was petrified with terror as his crying and weeping faded to a mumble. He stood, staring down at the two bodies, pawing at his mother, avoiding contact with the man who had fallen by her side. The stranger was unknown, and his mother had always told him to be cautious with people he did not know.
She had been lying for a long time, but no matter how often he prodded and nudged her, she would not wake. Rollo had seen others who had died, but he refused to accept the possibility that his mother could have. She would never have left him alone.
The alley was dark, but he was used to that. He and his mother had never had a home, and he was accustomed to sleeping outside with her, taking what meager protection from the elements they could by hanging up her cloak from a nail on a wall to form a makeshift tent and huddling together beneath it in the worst of weathers. More commonly he would find himself left alone in a room while his mother spoke to a man in a separate chamber. He had often jealously watched the children of townsfolk as they played and shouted. Rollo would never know such pleasures, because his mother had done something wrong.
He could not comprehend what it was that they were being punished for. They were both somehow guilty of a great crime, and it made them have to live apart from the other people of the town, constantly in fear. Rollo was six. If he had been the son of a merchant, he would be learning the trade he had been born to, or discovering the skills of a knight if his father had earned enough money and had an eye to the future. At the very least he could expect to be accepted into a farming community. But he and his mother were forced to beg and avoid others in case they were considered a nuisance.
And now his mother had fallen asleep, with this stranger beside her, and the other man had gone.
