Irritably gesturing with his hand as if slapping at the suggestion, Sir Robert snapped, “Rubbish! The King knows who his real friends are. It’s the knights in the shires like us who are his real guards, the men he needs to call on in time of war, not—”
“Brother, brother, please! Can you really believe that? The King cannot be stupid enough to think it. The knights who, as you say, he calls on when there are battles to be fought, are either abroad and earning money fighting with the Pisans or the Venetians or any others who will pay, or they are loyal to their lord before their King. After all, who do most knights give their word of allegiance to? The King or their local magnate? Anyway, Edward does not even need to worry about that here. Here his choice is very clear: does he support the miners, who provide him with many tons of tin and the taxes they produce, or does he side with a few knights whose lands border the moors, and whose wealth can only be measured in a few pounds?”
“In fairness he must—”
“Oh, no! Life is not fair. The King, God bless him, is forced to look to his own and the kingdom’s good. I fear that our father—and you—weigh rather low in his estimation compared with the tin miners.”
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Sir Robert, stung by the sarcasm. “You know the King needs men like us, we’re the backbone of the kingdom. Where would he be without the knights and—”
“Who’s that?”
The sudden concentration on his brother’s face made Sir Robert wheel round to the view. A pair of riders approached down the slope from the west. He frowned as he tried to make out the figures. “Good God! It’s that miner, Thomas Smyth, and his henchman. What do they want here?”
“I have no idea,” said John imperturbably, his eyes fixed on the horsemen. “But as the heir to the Manor, I’m sure you’ll know soon enough.”
Muttering an oath, Sir Robert spun on his heel and strode to the staircase in the small tower at the corner of the stables. This was just one more cause for concern. The miners were a constant irritation, and any visit from them was unlikely to be for social purposes, as Sir Robert knew.
Curious to see how the meeting went, John remained up on the wall where he could see down into the courtyard. From his vantage point he had a clear view of the reception. The old tinner dropped from his horse, tossing the reins to his servant with a haughty flick of his wrist, plainly feeling there was no danger to him even here in the stronghold of his enemy, John saw with some surprise. Sauntering across the yard, the visitor left his servant and made his way to the hall’s steps, at the top of which stood Sir William, his face grim. They met and said a few words at the door, then passed inside. A few moments later Sir Robert emerged from the stable block, rushed to the hall and stormed inside.
It was possible to hear what was being said inside the hall from the top of the steps, and for an instant John toyed with the idea of eavesdropping. Here was an opportunity for harmless fun, the chance of overhearing something with which he could prick his brother’s pride…but the embarrassment if he was caught outweighed the potential for any advantage. He shrugged and put the meeting from his mind. It was hot on the wall, and he was about to leave and fetch himself a pint of ale when he heard the raised voices.
It was obvious that there was a heated debate going on. He could make out his father’s voice, apparently raised in an attempt to calm someone, then the hoarse bellow of his brother: “You can’t—I won’t allow it! This is madness, complete madness! You want to take this foreigner’s word—it goes against all reason! I won’t have it!”
There was more in a similar vein, and John could see that the miner’s servant found it as intriguing as he did. At the first shout, he wavered visibly, undecided whether to go to the hall or not. With one hand on his dagger, the other pulling at his bottom lip, the man soon reached a decision and began to move toward the hall, but before he could cross the yard, the door was thrown open and Sir Robert hurtled out, rushing down the steps and across the cobbles to the stables. There he shoved a slow-moving ostler to his horse. Under his bellowed orders it was saddled and bridled, and then he mounted and galloped through the gate, off up the slope before the Manor.
John watched dumbfounded until his brother had disappeared among the trees at the brow of the hill, then he turned back to the courtyard. At the top of the steps stood his father, the tinner in the doorway behind him. He could see the quick motion of the miner’s hand, the slow loosening of the servant’s grip on his dagger’s hilt, but most of all what John saw, and what made him smirk secretly to himself, was the expression of despair on his father’s face as he stared after his oldest son.
W
ith the troubles caused by outlaws, Sir Ralph had decided to take the advice of his host and bring a man-at-arms with him on this ride. He was also aware, after talking to his young squire, that there was another good reason for bringing someone along with him who knew the area—for Dartmoor could be a dangerous place even in the middle of summer. Bogs proliferated, and often trapped unwary travellers as well as the sheep and cattle of the moormen. Even so, in the warm sunshine it was hard to be too fearful, and he soon threw off his feelings of caution and began to canter, enjoying the sensation of the wind pulling urgently at his cloak and the feeling of precise, elegant power in his horse’s stride. He was not dressed for war, clad only in his riding clothes of hose and a simple tunic of green wool, thin and cool. There had been no need to bring his great horse. Today he rode his palfrey, a light-framed roan mare who ate up the miles with eager joy.
His guard, a cheerful young man called Ronald Taverner, was happy enough with the ride. It was good to be out from the Manor for once. He had no knowledge of this knight, but he was an optimistic soul, eager to please Sir William and keen to impress any friend of the Beauscyr family. Right now the wish uppermost in his mind was that they might be able to stop off for a while and buy some drink, and for that he was taking the knight out north and west, toward the alehouse where the Dart River crossed the east-west road over the moors. The farmer there always made too much ale for himself, and was happy to sell it on to any passerby.
They had gone some four or five miles when they found themselves at the edge of a low cliff; they reined in and peered into the valley formed by a tight loop of an old river bed. Below them were the remains of what must have been a powerful watercourse, now reduced to a little stream, trickling down in a narrow rivulet between rocks, curving sharply away to their left and right. All around was a mess of gray moorstone and mixed gravels, with here and there a small bush or stunted tree. There was also a man, who stood as the two figures appeared over the brow above him and shielded his eyes against the sun behind them as he peered up.
Sir Ralph ignored him. Clearly the man was merely one of the tin workers, and thus of little importance. But then he heard the sudden hiss as the man-at-arms drew in his breath. “What is it?”
“That man there. It’s Peter Bruther, the runaway from my master’s Manor.”
“Is it?” Ralph looked back. He saw a man in his late twenties, thin and worn, dressed in a faded brown tunic and what looked like a shabby fustian cloak. Dark eyes held his, but not with suspicion or fear, merely with a kind of vague curiosity. After a minute, he shrugged and began scraping muck from the stream and tipping it into a leather bucket. Somehow Ralph felt let down. From what he had heard, this villein was the embodiment of evil, and yet the reality was rather pathetic. Making a quick decision, the knight smiled to himself. Spurring his horse on, he rode down the slope to where the man stood.
Hearing their approach, Bruther straightened again and watched as they splashed through the stream, glancing behind him once as if expecting a sudden attack, then waiting patiently. Ralph smiled at the look. Even if he wanted to, there was nowhere for him to run to—and little point in trying to escape from men on horseback, the knight reasoned.
“Are you Peter Bruther?”
On hearing his words, Bruther straightened and stared up at him. “I am a miner.”
Ralph felt his mouth twitch. It was pleasing that the man had a defiant spirit. “I assume that means you are, then. You are the runaway from Sir William Beauscyr’s estates.”
“I used to be one of his men,” Bruther confessed with an air of calm; if he had been admitting to owning a sack of corn for sale he could not have been more casual.
Studying him, Ralph was suddenly aware of a certain dry humor in his intelligent eyes. It was unsettling. As a knight, he was used to a range of expressions on the faces of peasants: usually anxiety and trepidation, often outright fear. Never before had he seen the open contempt which was now evident in the curl of the man’s lip and the raised eyebrow. Fury welled up in him. In a merchant or another freeman it would have been disrespectful. In a runaway, it was blatantly impudent. Ralph spurred his horse closer.
“If there is something which amuses you, share it with me.”
“Oh, no. Not until you have explained why you want to speak to me. You are the trespasser here, after all, not me.”
“Trespasser!”
The knight spat the word, astonished by the daring of this insignificant little man. Beside him, he heard the intake of breath from the man-at-arms.
“Sir Ralph, I think we should return—”
“No,” he interrupted, his eyes fixed on the slight figure before him. “I think we should take this man back with us. If for no other reason, his insolence deserves punishment. And it would be a good turn to Sir William for the hospitality he has shown me. After all, the Beauscyr family cannot be held responsible for me bringing the man back in error, can they? And I will soon be gone. Once he is back on the Manor’s land, he can be punished as a runaway. Tie him and give me the end of the rope—he can come back with us to the Manor and explain his amusement there. If he will not walk, we can drag him.”
“Sir Ralph…”
This time it was Peter Bruther who stopped the man-at-arms. “It’s Sir Ralph, is it? You know that I am a tinner—you see my tools here? You must know that I am responsible to the King now and am bound by stannary law, and yet you want to take me hostage?”
Ralph smiled bleakly. “I know you are a runaway villein from Beauscyr and that is all that matters to me.” He turned. “I told you to tie him…”
His voice faded at the sight which met his surprised gaze. Where before there had been an empty sweep of river bed, now there was a group of eight men. From the mattocks and shovels gripped in their grimy fists, they must be miners, and he realized too late that they must have been working further upstream, round the bend. There was no doubt in his mind, as he looked them over, that they were prepared to fight. Unconsciously, his hand fell to his sword, but at the movement he saw the point of a pick rise threateningly. He took his hand away, but kept it close. “Leave us alone,” he hissed.
“But, you see, these men are my friends—other miners like me. I think you should leave, though. This land is stannary land.
Our
land. You have no rights here.” Bruther was almost at his horse’s head now, peering up at him. His voice took on a harsh, jeering tone. “Go on, sir knight. Leave us. Or do you prefer to try to take me back, like you threatened?”
“You’ll regret this!” Ralph leaned low in his saddle and glared at Bruther, eyes wide in impotent fury. But there was nothing he could do. Viciously yanking the reins round, so that the metal bit cut into his mare’s mouth, he whipped and spurred her up the slope. Before Taverner could chase after him, Bruther snatched his pony’s bridle, and stood smiting up at the nervous man-at-arms. While his men laughed, the miner slipped the thong on his small coil of rope, then weighed it in his hands.
“You tell your Sir Ralph that I’ll keep this,” he said mockingly, and chuckled. “Tell him he can come and get me whenever he wants. I shall always keep it handy. If he wants me, he can come and tie me up and take me back with him.” He slapped the pony’s rump and Ronald clattered off after the disappearing knight.
But the man-at-arms had to travel a long way before the jeers and laughter of the men behind him had at last died away.
Straightening up, Henry Smalhobbe groaned and rubbed at his back. The sun was low in the western sky, and as he winced at it, face screwed into a walnut of wrinkles, he could see it was late. He should return to his hut; it would be dark in another thirty minutes or so. In Bristol the hills and trees all round quickly blotted out the sun and its light, but here twilight crept slowly toward true night, the stars gradually flaring above like tiny diamonds.
Shouldering his small leather sack of rocks, he hefted his shovel and pick and began to make his way homeward. The ground rose shallowly from the old river bed, and he had to climb the slope to the flat plain above, cutting straight across country to get to the hut and Sarah. It was a path he had trodden every day for some weeks now, and he knew it well. There were no dangerous marshlands, providing he walked carefully and kept the gray mass of Higher White Tor before him and Longaford Tor to his left, and the way was easy, being fairly level and grass-covered. There were few rocks.
The stream chuckled merrily behind him as he clambered upward, and he soon missed the sound as he walked on. Apart from the birds, his only company during the day had been the trickling water. At this time most of the birds were nesting, and the moors were quiet. Only the soft whispering of the wind could be heard. It made him shoulder his pack and frown ahead. There were too many stories here of Crockern for any man to feel entirely comfortable as night thickened and the light fled to leave the moors to the spirits.
But Henry Smalhobbe was not unduly superstitious, and he thrust all thoughts of the spirits of the moors to the back of his mind. He had learned to do that while still a small boy, leaving unproductive fears behind like so much unwanted baggage. There had been little which could upset the peaceful, even pace of his boyhood. Once he’d reached adulthood, most of his time had been spent in loyal service to his master, and the work had kept him too busy to have any terrors of ghosts or spirits. But that was before…
Stopping, he rubbed at an eye with the heel of his hand. His eyelid kept twitching—a strange but irritating quirk which had developed over the last few months, and which occasionally preyed on his mind in case it was the precursor of blindness. That thought terrified him. To be blind was to be the target of abuse, or worse. There was no protection for a blind man unless he was wealthy, and Henry Smalhobbe was not rich. If he were to lose his sight, he knew what would happen. Other miners would take over his land; he and his wife would be driven from the moors. How could a blind man find work? Their only hope would be for Sarah to earn them a living, and there was only one way she could do that.
He set his jaw and carried on. It was foolish to waste time worrying about such things. After all, there were many other dangers here on the moors. He could be bitten by a rabid animal or snake, fall into one of the bogs or catch leprosy. There were many ways to die horribly without exercising the imagination.
As if on cue, a low howl shivered on the soft breeze and he glanced at the horizon. Wolves—but a long way off, from the sound. He strode a little faster.
It was almost dark, and he was relieved to see the flickering light of the fire in his hut’s doorway. He and Sarah had built their small cottage with regular-sized stones from what appeared to be an old wall a few yards away, jamming pebbles and mud into the gaps to stop drafts, but they had only an old, thick fustian blanket to act as a door. It was little good in winter-time, but it served well enough now, in the warmth of summer. Sarah always left it open at night until he got home, to help him find his way.
The ground was flat here, with a light scattering of moorstone. One or two bushes broke the soft undulations of the grassy plain before his door, but in the main the area was empty as far as the eye could see. While some way off, Henry stopped, frowning. Up ahead, between him and his hut, a bush appeared to have changed. When he had left that morning, it had been a thin straggling plant, but now it seemed larger, and more substantial.
For a moment he felt as if his heart had stopped. All the terror of the moors struck him anew: he suddenly recalled the stories of the moorland spirits. The tales he had heard when sitting before the hearth of the inn with a quart of ale in his hand had seemed laughable then, but now, miles from anybody else, he felt defenseless. A gust of wind flicked the hair from his forehead, and in its light caress he felt the icy trickle of sweat. When the shadow-like figure slowly moved, the hairs at the back of Henry’s head rose like a dog’s hackles in a chilly spasm of fear.
Whatever it was blocked his path. He could not get to his door without passing it; could not see how Sarah was. She must surely be inside, but he dared not call to her—not for his own sake, but from fear of what the thing might do to her.
Then the fear disappeared as if blown away with the wind. The figure had coughed! Any creature which made such a mundane sound was only flesh and blood like himself. Gripping his mattock, he quietly placed his pack on the ground and crouched. Whoever it was seemed to want to remain hidden. The small explosion of sound had been stifled, as if smothered by a covering hand. It had only been the breeze, carrying the sound to him like a friendly spy, which had betrayed the man. Who he was and why he was here was a mystery, but one which Henry was keen to have answered. Carefully placing one foot in front of the other, he stalked his prey, circling widely to come upon the man from behind.
The figure slowly resolved itself into that of a squatting man, resting easily with elbows on his knees. Clad in a dark cloak, he surveyed the land ahead, occasionally glancing behind him at the hut with a cautious deliberation. Henry felt the blood hammer at his ears. This was no casual moorman, this was clearly an ambush, and the miner felt a rising anger. This man was waiting for
him.
There was only one reason, as Henry knew, why anyone would want to attack him, and if he could surprise the stranger, he might be able to capture him and gain the upper hand.
With infinite care, he crept toward the dark shape. Each time he saw the head begin to move he froze, holding his breath. Then, as it turned back to the path, Henry continued, his feet rising high and slow in a parody of normal motion before being carefully placed down, testing each step to make sure that it would make no sound. There were no twigs or dry leaves to betray his presence here. In a state of exquisite tension, his scalp tingling with his excitement, his hands locked like cast iron round the stave of his mattock, his mouth open to silence even his breathing, he painstakingly moved forward.