‘I rode on for a few hundred yards, under the shade of the trees, and then came to the open moor again. I saw the other two men, the foreigners…’
‘He means van Relenghes and his guard,’ Daniel murmured.
‘… and they both stared at me like I was some sort of outlaw or something,’ Edmund continued bitterly. ‘I’d never seen them before. I was worried; they both looked warlike, and the way they kept their eyes on me, I thought they might attack… and then, well…’
‘The boy?’
‘Yes, sir.’ His eyes dropped, and his voice fell as if the matter was too grave to be spoken of loudly. ‘I felt it more than anything. There was a crack, and the cart gave a sort of jump, and-’
Baldwin interrupted him. ‘You saw nothing in the road before you hit him?’
‘No, but I was looking over my shoulder. At those men.’
‘And you did not hear Master Herbert cry out?’
Edmund shook his head with conviction, and Baldwin tried to envisage the scene in his mind. Having been to the place, it was easier to picture how it might have happened. The farmer, nervous on seeing the brother of his dead lord, rode on quickly, only to find himself confronted with two intimidating strangers a long way from any help. Would it be any wonder that the farmer would keep his eye on them rather more than on the road ahead? The horse could see where the potholes were, and it would be better for Edmund to make sure he was not about to be attacked from behind and robbed. Especially as he was about to pass under that slight bank, Baldwin reminded himself. The bank, only three or so feet high, but standing just at the corner of that curve in the road…
‘When you had passed, was he on his face or his back?’ he asked.
‘His back, sir,’ whispered Edmund, closing his eyes at the memory. It was a sight he would never be able to forget. He looked like my own lad, sir. I thought I’d killed Jordan.‘ A tear trickled down his face.
The prone figure had been so like his own son, he had scarcely been able to move, so great was his feeling of dread. Then he’d stopped the horse, taken several deep breaths before clambering shakily down from the cart and walking the few paces to the still body. Only then did he recognise who it was.
‘I see,’ Baldwin said, but he looked puzzled. ‘To reiterate: you drove round the corner, out of sight of the two men, and over the child’s body. There was no sound of him calling out, so far as you heard – and you definitely found him lying on his back?’
‘That’s right, sir. As God is my witness.’
‘Did you run over his head?’ Simon asked.
Edmund shuddered. ‘His head? God’s teeth, no, sir! The wheel went over his chest. The mud showed that plain enough.’
‘Now, Edmund,’ Simon continued, ‘did you see anyone else on the moor that day?’
‘Yes, sir. There was a carter who passed me a while before I got to the fork in the road.’
‘That’d be the fishmonger?’ Simon asked, glancing back at Daniel. And when the steward shrugged: ‘Thomas, send someone to find this itinerant fish-seller and bring him to us as soon as possible.’
‘I also saw Petronilla up on the hillside above the stream just before I saw the two men,’ Edmund recalled, his face screwed up with concentration.
‘The maid?’ Simon asked. ‘What would she have been doing up there?’
Daniel grunted. ‘She often goes up that way to fetch eggs from the ducks. There are several up towards the big pool, and her mistress likes fresh duck-eggs sometimes.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘No,’ lied Edmund stoutly.
‘The very first question that’ll occur to everyone will be, “So why didn’t you immediately go to the manor and fetch help”?’ Baldwin asked.
Edmund gave him a strange look, as if doubting the grave, dark-featured knight’s intelligence. ‘Why, sir? Because the manor knows me only too well, and I’d just been told I was to become a villein again. Would you have gone running back to a place where they’d be as likely to string you up as thank you?’
‘Why should they?’ Baldwin asked quietly.
‘Because they’d think I’d run down the boy on purpose, of course! Wouldn’t you?’
Baldwin considered him, head on one side. ‘No, I wouldn’t. You’re a fool often enough, you brag about things when you’re drunk, I have no doubt, and I can tell that you beat your wife, but as to killing a child for revenge – I doubt it. Especially since… How old is your horse?’
‘Eh?’ The man’s face registered his surprise at the sudden question. ‘Fifteen, I suppose, but so what?’
‘How fast can he haul your cart?’
‘I don’t know, he gets me from Oakhampton fast enough.’
‘Could he overtake a running dog?’
‘Well, not with the cart, of course…’
‘Could he overtake a running boy?’
Thomas thrust himself past Simon and went to stand between Baldwin and the prisoner. ‘What in God’s name has all this to do with anything? Are you making fun of my hospitality, Sir Knight?’
‘Out of my way, Thomas!’ Baldwin roared. Thomas blenched and fell back before the knight’s enraged glare. Baldwin stood, glowering.
‘You know perfectly well that this poor fool had nothing to do with the death of your nephew; he couldn’t have run down a child on a cart pulled by a broken-down nag. This whole affair is a farce, and you have contrived to have an innocent man arrested – someone who couldn’t possibly defend himself. You selected him carefully, didn’t you?’
‘He might have run over Herbert without the boy seeing him,’ Thomas said.
Simon had no idea what the two men were talking about, but two factors weighed heavily with him: he had faith in Baldwin’s judgement, and Thomas was showing signs of extreme anxiety.
‘You know as well as I do that that’s rubbish,’ Baldwin said sharply. ‘A lad lying on his back, and you suggest that he couldn’t see what was coming towards him? Or perhaps you believe that he wished to remain there, and wanted to be run down?’
‘Perhaps he was unconscious?’ Thomas suggested with a slight frown, as if putting forward a novel new concept.
‘Yes, and perhaps he was lying there because someone else had already killed him, eh? Master Thomas, you had your horse with you that afternoon, I believe?’
‘Do you dare to suggest that-’
“I suggest you should exercise your brain as to how to release this man without leaving a smear of any sort on his character -and at the earliest possible moment,‘ said Baldwin, and glanced towards the baffled farmer. ’Edmund, you said the body reminded you of your son. Why was that? Was the boy wearing clothing like young Jordan’s?‘
The shaken farmer took a moment to consider the question. ‘No, sir, it’s only that my lad often used to play with Master Herbert. The last time I saw Squire Roger was when he came to complain about my son playing with Master Herbert in the orchard, I remembered Jordan saying he was going to play up at the manor, and automatically thought to myself that it must be him. That was all.’
‘Well, all I can say is, I think you ran over a dead boy, farmer. Herbert was dead long before you hit him.’
‘He might have been alive,’ Thomas protested.
‘If he was alive, he was unconscious and unaware of the cart heading towards him, which means the fanner was not responsible. The man who knocked the child down in the first place was responsible. Wasn’t he?’
Chapter Twenty
‘This is becoming more confusing, not less,’ fretted Simon as they walked into the bright sunlight again. ‘How did you get Edgar to call for Thomas like that?’
‘Oh, I had a little word with Wat before we went in. I knew we’d get nothing out of Edmund with Thomas
