It was a good mile and a half to the little hut where Peter Bruther had lived. After some minutes, they could see it – a small, stone-built place, with turves carelessly tossed over for a roof. A fast-flowing stream wandered before it, cutting deeply into the black soil. Behind lay a patch of cultivated soil, where some crops struggled against the bitter winds which scoured the land.
At the sight of the building, the five men slowed to a trot. All were struck with the urge to approach quietly as a mark of respect to the dead man who had lived there. Their passage was almost spent until they splashed through the stream and headed to the door. And only then did they hear a shrill scream and see the woman dart from the entrance, ducking under the head of Baldwin’s horse, and pelting away to the east.
The men were so surprised that at first no one could move. Baldwin’s horse seemed as astonished as his rider, shying only when the woman had passed well beyond, but even as he snorted and jerked his head, his rider was beginning to get over his shock. While Simon exchanged a dumbfounded glance with Hugh, the knight set spurs to his horse, and with Edgar close behind, made off after her.
He had no desire to harm or scare her, but he was intrigued to know who she was and what she had been doing in the dead man’s house. Approaching obliquely so as not to alarm her unduly, he overtook her and slowed to a trot. She was sobbing. He smiled, trying to look reassuring, and held up his hands to show they were empty of weapons. It appeared to work, for as he reined in, she stopped a short distance from him, wiping at her eyes and panting.
It was impossible for the knight to miss the signs of her poverty, the threadbare dress and dirty wimple, the holes at the elbows and knees, but he was impressed by her carriage. She stood tall and straight, looking almost like a lady, and was not scared to meet his gaze. This was no fearful rabbit of a serf, he could see.
“Please stop, madam. You are in no danger, I assure you.”
“Who are you? Are you with Thomas?”
His expression of frank incomprehension must have been convincing, for her eyes left his at last, and moved to take in the straggle of men at the hut behind her, then Edgar, who had pulled up to her side and now sat resting his elbows on his horse’s withers. Baldwin shrugged to emphasize his ignorance of the name. He had no knowledge of this Thomas.
“You aren’t miners, then,” she said doubtfully, and her mystification increased as the dark-faced knight laughed aloud.
“No, no, we’re not miners. I am Sir Baldwin Furnshill, and the gentleman back there is Simon Puttock, the bailiff of Lydford. We are here to find out who killed Peter Bruther.”
“He is dead, then?” she cried, and covered her face with her hands.
Edgar led Baldwin’s horse back to the hut while the knight walked with the weeping woman. By the time they had returned to the other men, he had managed to learn that she was Sarah Smalhobbe.
“Why were you here, Sarah?” Simon asked when Baldwin had introduced her.
“I wanted help after they attacked us. They came to my house yesterday, three of them, and they set on my husband. He’s there now, in his cot. Three against one! Where’s the victory in that, eh? The cowards hit him and kicked him while he was on the ground, beating him with cudgels just because he refused to leave the moors. But where else can we go, sir? We have no family to protect us, we’re just poor people, and we cannot leave and find somewhere else to live.”
“You do not come from around here, then?” Baldwin asked gently, and her gaze immediately moved to him. She hesitated, nervous of saying too much. “No, sir. We come from the north.”
“Where from? Why did you come all the way down here, to this miserable place?”
Unaccountably she began to snivel again. “Sir, it’s hard, but there has been nowhere to earn a crust – the famine affected richer people than us. We had to go somewhere when we could no longer get food, and when we heard about the mining down here, it seemed a chance to build our lives again.”
Simon glanced at Baldwin, then back at the woman. “We can protect you on the way to your house, and perhaps help your man. But you must tell us who did this to him.”
The fear returned to her eyes. “If I tell you they’ll come back.”
“If you tell us, we can see that they never come back,” he said reassuringly.
“How can I depend on that? What if you’re wrong? They may burn us out, or kill us both!”
“Sarah, calm yourself. I am the bailiff. They will not dare to attack you if they hear you’re under my protection.”
“I don’t know… I must speak to my husband.”
“Very well, I won’t force you. But think on it. We may be able to help you – after all, the last thing we need down here is mob-rule.”
“You already have that, bailiff,” she said sadly, and turned away.
While she waited outside Bruther’s hut with Hugh and Edgar, Simon and Baldwin entered the little dwelling. A balk of timber in the center supported the roof, while a burned patch and twigs nearby showed where the miner had kept his fire. A simple stool formed the only furniture. The man’s sad collection of belongings lay on a large moorstone block which jutted from the wall in place of a table: a cloak, a hood, a small knife, a half-loaf of bread, a paunched rabbit. A thin and worn sleeping mat lay rolled up on the floor beside it.
Baldwin picked up the dead rabbit and weighed it in his hand. “This can only be a day old. In this heat it would hardly last much longer. If he caught this, surely he would not have committed suicide shortly after?”
“Why – do you think he might have killed himself?” Simon asked sharply.
The knight sighed. “No, but suicide would explain why his hands had not been bound. Then there’s the second mark…”
“What second mark?”
Baldwin explained while Simon listened intently. “It more or less proves it must have been murder,” the knight said, tossing the rabbit aside.
“It’s not very honorable, is it?” Simon mused.
“Stepping up behind a man and throttling him. Not the kind of behavior you’d expect out here. Usually if there’s a fight it’s with daggers or fists. This… it’s sickening.”
“Yes. As you say, it is hardly chivalrous. But then, there are many miners on the moors, and I doubt whether any of them have noble blood. In any case, there is not much reason here to kill a man, if they killed him to rob.”
“Could they have taken something from him?”
“From a villein? Maybe he had a purse on him, but he hadn’t been living here for a year yet. He can’t have earned that much. No, I doubt whether the purpose was robbery. Besides, since when have robbers hanged their victims?”
There was nothing more for them to learn here. They went outside and mounted their horses. Baldwin offered Mrs. Smalhobbe a ride with Edgar, but she refused. It wasn’t far to her house and she would be happier to walk. “So would I,” Hugh muttered fiercely when he saw that Simon was within hearing, but his master chose to ignore the comment.
At the Smalhobbe holding they found a small and neat square stone cottage. Sarah immediately ran to the door and entered while the men dismounted. Inside it was tiny. By the light of a guttering candle, which made the air rank with the foul smell of burning animal fat, Simon could see the slim figure lying on a palliasse at the far end of the room, his wife kneeling beside him. On their appearance, the miner lurched up to sit, his brown eyes showing anxiety – but not fear, Baldwin noted approvingly. The man looked unwell, his gaunt features bruised, but though he was slight of build, Smalhobbe looked wiry and fit.
“My wife says you are trying to find out what happened last night,” he said, his voice weary and strained.
Baldwin glanced round the room, then sighed as he realized there were no chairs or benches. He squatted. “Yes. Peter Bruther was killed, as your wife has presumably told you. We understand you were attacked as well.”