Now, some hours later, it was getting dark and Samuel was in a hurry to return to the Manor. He had no wish to be out when night fell, he was too well aware of the tales, and he was fearful of the response of Lady Matillida if they should arrive late. In a small fort like Beauscyr she would be certain to hear about it. Others had endured her fury: he had no wish to.
After leaving the stableyard they turned east. It wasn’t long before Samuel saw a pair of riders before them. He felt sure that they were miners, and cursed. Even a single quart of ale made Ronald useless in a fight, and today he had consumed three. Nervously, Samuel glanced south. He remembered this area, it was close to the River Dart, and the ground was often little better than a mire. On the other side of the road there was a path north. They could follow that for a mile, and then turn east on to the Lych way. It was hardly a direct route, but better than getting involved in an unequal fight. Cursing quietly, he spurred his mount to the trail.
Ronald seemed unaware of any change in their direction. He jogged along happily after Samuel, his face beaming. Samuel muttered bitterly. With this detour, they would be travelling a good two miles out of their way. But there was no alternative – the two riders were at the end of the lane, staring after him suspiciously. Praying that they would not follow, Samuel led on.
This track wound along near the river at first; gradually the hills began to rise upon either side. It would have been easy to turn off to the right and make their way down to the road again, but that would have taken them close to Crockern Tor, the seat of the miners’ parliament. Anything associated with tinners was unattractive tonight, and Samuel determined to stay on the track until it met the Lych way.
The rocks on both sides grew more plentiful, and the horses began to climb. A hillock stood before them, and when they reached its summit, another lay beyond. Soon Samuel could see the gray-green mass of a wood ahead, and he pursed his lips at the sight. It was only a short way after this, he knew, that the main track lay, and he kicked his horse again. The rest of the journey would be faster, and the sooner they were on their way the happier he would be. The sun was low in the west.
Its glow was a rim of gold and purple above the hill to his left, and it gilded the top of the bank on his right with impossible fiery colors. Down here in the valley he felt the cold rising from the river, and there was an eerie quality to the deadened sounds of their horses’ progress as they circled the little wood.
“Is it much farther?” he heard Ronald call. The lad’s brain was still sodden: his face had not yet lost its expression of bemused happiness.
“Shut up, you daft bugger,” he snarled. “If it wasn’t for you we’d be most of the way back. Can’t you see where we are?” Ronald gazed at him in blank incomprehension. “Look around. We’re miles out of the way, hadn’t you realized?”
They were at the top of the wood now, and Samuel was about to turn in disgust and make off along the Lych way, when he saw something new in Ronald’s expression. “What is it now?” he asked irritably.
In answer, the young man-at-arms pointed a shaking finger. There, just to their left, stood a large tree, with a rock at its base. And from one branch, spinning slowly, head drooping, hanged a man.
5
It had been dark for almost an hour when Matillida Beauscyr heard the cry from the gate, then the heavy snort of a horse and a stamping of hooves in the courtyard. Peering through the open door, she saw the ostlers holding her older son’s horse while he dismounted and curtly instructed them to feed and groom the great creature. Then he made his way over to her.
She stood quite still as he came near, one hand resting on the doorframe, and though she made no sign he knew immediately how angry she was.
“Mother. My apologies for being out so late. I…”
“Be quiet and come inside.”
The words were forced out between teeth clenched so tightly together she looked as if she had lockjaw. Following her, he could feel his face reddening just as it had in his youth in anticipation of the sharp cutting edge of her tongue. With an effort he kept his head up, determined not to show his feelings.
It was the same whenever he knew he had upset her. Robert feared no man greatly, not even his father, but his mother was different. The daughter of a wealthy burgess in Exeter, Matillida had been reared to behave imperiously, confident in the knowledge that her wishes carried authority. She still had the deportment of a princess – but now, in the Manor she had taken for her home, she wielded more power than any queen.
In the hall, she led the way to the fireplace, swearing at the bottler and curtly ordering him out, and sat, staring at her son. “Well?” she demanded. Her voice was deceptively cold. She would not let herself fly into a passion, that would be too demeaning, but she could not hide her contempt as she stared at her eldest son. He had good reason to squirm, she thought.
To move to the middle of the moors after the busy social life of Exeter had not been easy, but she had understood her duty. Her father had been glad to have won for her the hand of a man such as Beauscyr. To Matillida’s mind, Sir William was maybe not so comely as other knights, but he was a man of wealth and power then, in 1289, and she was pleased with the way that she had fitted into his household. In the nineteen years since, never had she forgotten her twin responsibilities: to look after the Manor and give her husband the sons he needed. And she had, although two other sons and a daughter had died young, too weak to survive in the harsh moorland climate. Only two had lived, and now the eldest had left the family open to attack. The fool!
“I’m sorry if you were worried for me, but…” Robert began stiffly.
“Don’t be stupid! If you were mad enough to get yourself into trouble on the moors, you know well enough how to look after yourself. And if you were to get yourself killed, at least then you would save us from any other problems caused by your lack of thought.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I was angry – I had to leave, otherwise I might have said something which could have made problems for us.”
“No, not angry. You were sulking like a child whose plaything has been taken away. You rode off from an important meeting where your father needed you,” her voice began to rise, “and you did it in a manner which guaranteed that all the men in the yard would see and hear. ‘Oh, the poor young master,’ they will all have thought. And where does it leave you in the future? How do you expect them to respect you now? What happens when your father dies? He’s over fifty-five now, he can’t last much longer – and how can you take over his responsibilities if the men think you will run away each time there is a hard decision or negotiation to undertake?”
“That’s hardly fair,” he said, his face flushing. “That cretinous miner Smyth was threatening us, the bastard! He rode in here as if he owned the place, and…”
“You dare to call him cretin?” Her voice was low, but her hands gripped the carved arms of the chair tightly. It was galling that her son was so dense. After the privileged education he had received, he should have realized the implications to the Manor and himself. “He at least knows his power here – you seem to forget it. Do you not recall that under the King’s law, if a miner says there is tin on our land, he can come and seek it out? If he says there is ore beneath our fields, he can ruin our crops if he has a mind to, and don’t…” she held up a hand to stop his attempt at interruption, “…don’t tell me he wouldn’t dare. He has the men to do it. And when he came here to talk, you ran from the room like a maid scared of losing her virginity!”