Figure of Hate (18 page)

'I never want to see the sod again, other than lying dead from some very painful disease,' snarled Warin Fishacre. 'But I suppose we had better look as if we're doing something. The swine will no doubt turn up in his own good time.'

There were lighter steps on the staircase, which was built into the thickness of the wall, and a woman appeared, dressed in a flowing kirtle of white samite.

Her blonde hair was braided into two long plaits which hung down over her bosom, the tips confined in gilded metal tubes. A voluminous mantle of blue silk hung from her shoulders and fell almost to the ground, secured across her neck by a gilt cord. About twenty-five years of age, Beatrice Peverel was undoubtedly beautiful, her fair skin and large blue eyes complemented by full red lips.

The two men bobbed their heads and touched a finger to their temples in respect to the lady of the manor, waiting to be spoken to first.

'Have you found my husband yet, Walter?' she asked in a soft, melodious voice which conveyed more annoyance than concern for Hugo's disappearance.

'Not yet, my lady. All the servants are out and about, searching for him.'

His hand swept around the hall to emphasise the fact that the usually bustling chamber was deserted.

Behind her, in the shadows of the stairwell, her maidservant hovered uncertainly, not sure whether her mistress needed a chaperone when the two men with whom she was alone were only the familiar bailiff and reeve. Beatrice sighed, her fingers playing with several large gold rings that adorned her small hands.

'Very well, I suppose he'll appear eventually, as he usually does.'

'Yes, my lady. I don't think he can be far away - his horse is still in the stable,' said Walter reassuringly.

She smiled faintly and turned to climb the staircase, which led up to the solar where she and Avelina spent their days, as well as to four other rooms where various members of the family slept. The two men went to the farther end of the hall, which was a large square chamber lit only by a pair of slit embrasures in each wall. Here a corner was partitioned off by wooden screens, behind which was the bottler's domain, containing kegs and crocks of ale, as well as skins and flasks of imported wine. Food brought from the kitchen hut behind the house was served up here and some remnants of the early morning meal were still lying around. In the main body of the hall, which had a hearth and chimney instead of a central fire-pit, tables and benches were provided for eating and drinking, which was what the bailiff and reeve now had in mind.

As the place was deserted, they went behind the screens and helped themselves to some bread, cold bacon and cheese, then drew ale from a cask supported on wedges against the wall.

'I reckon I deserve this. I've been looking for that bloody Hugo for nigh on four hours!' muttered Fishacre, taking his food and jug to the nearest trestle.

As they sat champing at the coarse bread and savouring the salt bacon, Walter Hog ruminated on what might have happened to their lord and master.

'I can't see that it's connected to that affair in Exeter last week, but he's been like a boar with a sore arse since he came home!'

Though Hugo Peverel had not mentioned a word of the shameful incident at the tournament, everyone in Sampford was well aware of what had happened - even if Hugo's squires had kept their mouths shut, there were the armourers, several varlets, carters and a couple of body servants who would have whispered the gossip as soon as they got back.

'You know what I think of the sod!' grunted Warin Fishacre. 'It's God's burden that I should be stuck as a bondsman under that evil swine! If it wasn't for my wife and children, I'd be tempted to make a run for it to Exeter.' If a villein could escape to a town and remain uncaptured there for at least a year and a day, he could gain his freedom.

Walter laid a warning hand on the reeve's arm.

'Hush, man, keep your opinions to yourself in here, for your family's sake, if not your own.'

'Family!' snarled the gaunt man cynically. 'That's where the trouble lies, as well you know, Walter Hog.' He buried his face in the earthernware mug of ale and sucked as if it were Hugo's very blood that he was drinking. It was just as well that he stopped his ranting at that moment, for feet clattered on the steps outside and a new figure came into the hall. It was the armourer, Robert Longus, who was one of their lord's favourites and who would have been happy to take the reeve's rebellious words back to his master.

'Any news, Robert?' asked the bailiff, as the man came across to them.

'One of the pig boys, the simple one with the harelip, now says he saw the master late last night with one of the Servant girls, though he doesn't know who it was.

The daft bugger kept it to himself until he came back from the waste just now.'

The waste was the rough ground at the extreme edge of the manor lands beyond the pasture, where assarting was slowly driving back the forest edge to provide extra arable land. It was good enough only for grazing pigs and goats until it had been put under the plough.

'No surprise there, he's been through half the girls in the village,' growled Warin under his breath.

'Where did this lad see him?' asked Walter.

'Behind the churchyard, soon after dark last night.

We've been over that area several times, without a sign of him.'

The armourer looked questioningly at the bailiff.

'Are you going to tell her ladyship? And Lady Avelina?' Walter looked uncomfortable - this sounded like a direct challenge to his courage. Lady Avelina was Hugo's stepmother, a formidable woman at the best of times, which this wasn't.

'Let's wait until we find him - then he can tell them himself, if he wants to!' he countered.

'Be no surprise to either of the ladies to hear that he's been riding the young serving girls again,' sneered Fishacre. He seemed about to enlarge on this theme, but under the table the bailiff gave him a surreptitious kick on the ankle.

They finished their ale and went out into the pale autumn sunshine. With most of the men attending the court, the bailey was quiet, though almost all the female servants were wandering about the village, looking into chicken sheds, pigsties and hay bytes in case their lord was lying somewhere in a drunken sleep. It would not be the first time, but usually he sobered up during the night and found his way back to the manor house.

Walter Hog led the way to the entrance in the stockade, where a drawbridge over a deep ditch protected stout gates, now wide open. He had lived here for a couple of years, but still found new sights to stare at, being a Somerset man from the hills of eastern Exmoor. Now he gazed down the rutted lane through the village to where he could see the bell arch on the roof of the church. Sampford Peverel was built on a low ridge above a small valley, through which ran a stream. It was a crossing on this brook that gave the village its name, derived from the Saxon for 'sandy ford'. The small wooden church of St John the Baptist was on the eastern end of the ridge. Beyond it, the track went eastward to distant Taunton, joining the high road back to Exeter about a mile away.

The manor house was a few hundred paces up the slope from the church, and between them was an open space that acted as the village green. Here the weekly obligatory archery practice took place, urchins played tag and passing pedlars and chapmen displayed their wares to the good-wives of the hamlet. Cottages and huts straggled around the green and along the track that led westward towards Tiverton. They were a motley collection, some mere shacks with rotting timber walls, others more substantial, being made of cob plastered between wooden frames. All had low thatched roofs, some of clean new reeds, others green with growing grass and moss. These toffs had a patch of croft around them where vegetables grew, and a few chickens, geese and maybe a house cow helped to feed the families within.

One dwelling on the green was slightly larger than the others and had a bush hanging from a pole outside, marking it as an alehouse, though every household brewed ale for its own use. It was the only palatable drink available, given the quality of the water supply, which, apart from some wells, came mainly from the stream below the church. This was good enough to turn the wheel of the mill, but as the rubbish, offal and night-soil of most of the village were thrown into it, the brook was shunned as a source of drinking Water, though the women were content to use the mill-pond to soak their washing and beat it clean on the stones along the bank.

'I'll go for one more look down there,' said the bailiff, pointing towards the church. 'You go again up to the top end of the village. We can do little more until the men have finished in the leet.' Grumbling under his breath, Warin Fishacre loped off in the other direction, determined to call in at his own toft for a rest, rather than pound around the village yet again. The more earnest Walter, determined to do the job as best he could, set off towards the green, his head swivelling from side to side as he went, in case Hugo Peverel suddenly staggered out of some shed or hay-loft. He nodded to the wives and girls he saw on the way, who were now only pretending to look diligently for their lord after several hours of futile searching.

Opposite the green, he passed one dwelling whose end wall had fallen down, as the clay, straw and dung plastered on to panels woven from hazel withies had dissolved from rain streaming down from the decayed thatch above. Sitting outside on a large stone was the only man in sight, an old fellow who had suffered a stroke the previous year and could now only drag himself along on one good leg, using a crutch made from a branch. He lived with his daughter, who eked out a living for them by growing and collecting herbs and plants to make medicine for the villagers.

'God be with you, Adam!' called the bailiff. 'You saw no sign of our lord Hugo last night, I suppose?' The cripple had been inside until now, lying on the heap of dried ferns that served him as a bed, so none of the searchers had yet spoken to him. He raised the arm that was not paralysed and beckoned the bailiff to come closer. When he approached, the old man made some gargling noises from a mouth that was sagging at one side, spittle dribbling as he tried to make himself understood. Leaning over the tattered fence of sticks that kept a pair of goats from wandering, Walter managed to make out what Adam was telling him. It was that late the previous evening, he had come outside to empty his bladder for the night and had seen Hugo Peverel staggering down the lane, dragging a girl by the hand. Adam seemed to find this no surprise, having rived for sixty-eight years in Sampford and seen a succession of Peverels seducing the village maidens.

'Did you see where he went?' asked Walter, not really expecting any useful reply. Adam muttered something about moonlight-and raised his good hand to point unsteadily across the road at some cottages and other rickety buildings along the opposite edge of the village green.

'Across there, towards the ox byres,' he spluttered.

Walter left him with a word of thanks and ambled across the track that was Sampford's main street.

Between the widely spaced cottages there were a couple of large shelters where the plough teams of oxen were stabled in the winter, though at this time of year they were grazing out on the meadows, waiting for the men to start work after the manor leet.

The stables had already been searched, but to humour old Adam the bailiff decided to have another look. He walked up to the sheds, which were little more than sloping roofs of old thatch supported on poles, .

with hurdles of woven branches forming the walls.

As he went into the gap that served as the entrance of the first stable, his lethargy was brought to an abrupt end by a piercing scream from inside. A woman he recognised as the wife of the mole-catcher was standing at the other end, alongside a hurdle that held back a high stack of winter fodder for the oxen. She had an armful of loose hay, which she dropped as he ran forward, holding her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

'God's teeth, Gertrude, what's the matter with you?' he shouted.

Tremulously, she pointed over the hurdle. 'I was taking a bit of hay for my conies - only a handful,' she gabbled defensively. Walter knew that she kept rabbits penned in her garden for food and stole a little hay to bed and feed them, as did many other cottars. He peered over the panel of twigs and his pulse began to race as he saw a booted foot and most of a leg sticking out from under the pile of fodder. Gertrude, a heavily built matron with a bad turn in her eye, came nervously up behind him to look over his shoulder.

'I lifted a bit of hay and there it was, sticking out from under the rick.'

She pointed a wavering finger at the tight yellow hose that covered the leg like a second skin. With an oath, Walter Hog dragged back a hurdle and bent over the limb, hurriedly pulling away handfuls of the sweet smelling hay. More fell down from above as he burrowed at the pile, and with another curse he seized larger armfuls and tossed them aside to clear a space over the body. He needed to expose it only up to the waist before he knew it was his lord and master, as he recognised the good-quality hose and the finely embroidered hem of the green tunic that came to the knees.

'Run, woman, go and tell the reeve, the steward anyone! Go to the leet if you see no one on the road .... tell them the lord is found, though I fear he's dead!'

Gertrude picked up the hem of her shabby kirtle and hurried off, forgetting to pick up her scavenged hay on the way. Left alone, the bailiff, sweating with excitement and a little apprehension, decided to drag the body out, as the more he threw the fodder aside, the more cascaded down from above, the stack being well over head height. Walter had realised immediately that the body was a corpse and not just a drunken man, as his first touch on the man's calf told him it was cold and stiff.