Simon stared, but gradually his enthusiasm faded to be replaced by a somber reflection. “Very well, Baldwin. But I think I may be right.”

“You may well be. But for now we are living in the Manor of the boys’ father, and you should be careful how you proceed. We have no proof of anything, only guesses. All we really know is that there were two strange characters on the moors that night and no one seems to know who they were. Apart from that it is all conjecture.”

“In that case we must get some proof.” Simon began to walk to the hall, but then suddenly stopped dead.

“What is it, Simon?”

“Baldwin! Bruther: he had a group of miners with him, according to Ronald Taverner! Why… come!”

He led the way to the stairs and climbed them swiftly. At the top, Baldwin followed him along the line of the wall to where Sir Ralph stood peering out, his hands on the battlements. Hearing their approach, he turned slowly, then sighed.

“Sir Ralph, we have heard about your meeting with Peter Bruther out on the moors,” Simon said as they drew near.

“I guessed you would.” His lip curled bitterly. “It’s the sort of thing a man-at-arms would not forget, a knight running from a rabble.”

“We must know exactly what happened. It could have a bearing on the murder.”

“You mean, you think I might have killed the fellow.” His eyes searched their faces for a moment. Their doubts were all too obvious, and he knew he would be suspicious if he was in their position. “It is true that I was humiliated,” he admitted, “but that’s no reason to kill!”

“You should’ve told us before, Sir Ralph,” said Simon shortly. “It would’ve saved us time, and stopped us having to wonder about you. As it is, you can make up for your mistake now. We understand you met Bruther and tried to bring him back?”

“Yes. He was digging among the rocks when we saw him and I wanted to get a closer look. Then he insulted me, and I was going to punish him for it. And it would have helped my host, of course, to have his runaway brought back. I thought Sir William would be grateful. But it was impossible.”

“Of course. You were thwarted by the men with him?”

“Yes.” The knight’s face twisted into a grimace of self-reproach. “I should have ignored them, but…”

“How many men were there?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Seven, maybe eight.”

“And how were they with him?” Simon asked, frowning.

“What do you mean?”

Baldwin interrupted. “What were they like with him? Was he scared of them, do you think? Could they have been his friends? Were they guards holding him – or were they protecting him?”

Blank amazement stole over the features of the knight. “I have no idea. I… They seemed well-enough disposed toward him, that much I know. They didn’t strike me as being his enemies.”

“So you would not say that he was being held by them against his will?” Baldwin persisted.

“If he were, he would hardly have been so rude to me, would he? He would have tried to come away with me. Anyway, why on earth should he have been held by his own kind?”

“You felt that? That they were his own kind?”

“God in Heaven!” Sir Ralph’s patience was running dry. “Of course they were! They were miners, weren’t they? So was he!”

“Think, Sir Ralph,” Baldwin said calmly. “Are you quite sure about it? You are sure they were his friends! Not just holding a man who happened to be a miner? How did they behave?”

Sir Ralph stared. “They…” He broke off. “Now I come to think about it, they were almost like a guard. They stood around, but none of them spoke, as if he was their leader. If they had all been equals, I suppose I would have expected more of them to speak, but only he did.”

“While you were with your woman, you said you did not know that John had left the inn,” Simon stated.

“That’s right. I had no idea he had left.”

“So you don’t know how long he might have been gone for? Or whether he could have made it to Bruther’s place?”

Throwing his hands in the air, Sir Ralph felt he was being tested beyond endurance. He stared at the bailiff in exasperation. “In God’s name! How could I know? Until you told me, I had no idea he had gone!”

Baldwin leaned against the battlement and folded his arms. “We don’t know what to think. But it does seem as though John had an opportunity to kill Bruther. It was light when you got to the inn, wasn’t it?” He nodded. “And was it still light when you were with the woman?”

“I suppose so. The shutters were over the windows. I couldn’t say.”

“So it comes to this. John knew that Bruther had insulted you, his master. He knew Bruther had caused problems for his father and the Manor. And we know he had the chance to kill Bruther because he disappeared for some time.”

“But surely others had more reason to kill than he?”

“Possibly, but we can’t ignore the fact that John seems to have had the chance as well as reasons aplenty. Did he kill while he was in the north with you?”

Sir Ralph wetted his lips nervously. “It’s possible,” he managed after a moment.

“So he could have killed again.” Baldwin’s tone was definite, and Sir Ralph slowly nodded. They had no more questions and a few minutes later he left them, walking meditatively over to the stairs. They watched him slowly crossing the courtyard to the hall.

“Now I think Sir Ralph feels sure it is his squire,” said Baldwin.

“Yes, but he could be wrong. Don’t forget, the three men working for Thomas Smyth could have been telling the truth when they said they were told not to attack Bruther,” Simon reminded him. “From Sir Ralph’s words, it would appear that Bruther was protected by miners, so it must be less likely that it was Smyth’s men who killed him. But why would that be? Why was Thomas not after this one man to go away and leave the area? If he was so determined to have Henry Smalhobbe and others thrown off the moors, what would’ve made him let Bruther stay?”

“From all we have heard, this Peter Bruther was no coward. He seems to have been prepared to stand up for himself against his master, Sir Ralph – anyone. Perhaps he fought against Thomas Smyth as well. After all, we do not know who these other miners were who defended him against the worthy knight. Maybe there were others like him and Smalhobbe – a little group of the weak protecting themselves against the strong.”

“Possibly. We must speak to Henry Smalhobbe and ask him about that.”

“We could go and ask the miners, too, of course, but I doubt whether we’d find out much more than we have already learned,” mused Baldwin.

“No. It’s Smalhobbe I wish to see. I want to know more about that man’s past.”

At his hut Henry Smalhobbe paused at the door and dropped his sack of tools with a sigh of satisfaction. Hearing the clatter, Sarah rushed to the doorway and twitched the curtain aside, gasping with relief as she saw her husband. She had been on edge and anxious ever since the attack, and especially after hearing about poor Peter’s death. From that appalling day onward she had not been able to relax.

The air was still and humid, and she had felt on the brink of fainting all day in the smothering heat. Even the birds had seemed to find it too exhausting to sing, apart from an occasional lark. There had been a haze which had hidden the further hills when she stared out to the south and east, and the land nearer shimmered under the smothering blanket of intense dry heat.

As she performed her chores, sweeping the hard-packed earth of the floor, washing a tunic and mixing dough, Sarah Smalhobbe could sense a brooding danger all round as if the moors themselves hated her and wanted both her and her husband to die. These moors were not soft and gentle like the northern ones nearer their old home, they were brutal and unfeeling, and she could feel them watching her.

She was not fanciful, but the tales of the old man of the moors, Crockern, kept crowding back into her mind.