“He wanted me off,” admitted Smalhobbe. “But Bruther? I don’t know. His works were some way out, deep into the moors, away from the roads and so on. Maybe Smyth didn’t care about the land up there. I know the only reason he wanted my plot was because he thought it should be his, and it was that bit closer to his camp. Maybe Bruther’s place was just too far away for it to be worth scaring a man off.”
“But still, why would he send men to protect the man?”
“Smyth would want any miner to be safe from the attacks of a foreigner,” explained Smalhobbe. “Anyone who came here to take Bruther would be stating to the world that the miners were just ordinary people, without special rights. Smyth is a strong, bold man. He would not want to have others think him weak, or any other miner on the moors, either. How many of his own men are trying to lose their pasts by coming here? How many were draw-latches, robbersmen or outlaws? How many of his miners would Smyth lose if anyone could come to the moors and take their runaways back with them? He would not want that, it could disrupt all his workings. I think he felt he had to look after Bruther, to protect the other men in his camp.”
Simon took a few minutes to consider this. He saw the knight nod slowly in agreement: it made sense. Many barons would behave in the same way, putting men in to protect a neighboring small fort, not for profit, but just to deter a possible aggressor. “Very well,” he said eventually, “but why were these men not with him on the night he died?”
“That I do not know, sir.”
“Do you have any idea why he should have been at Wistman’s Wood?”
Shaking his head, the miner said, “No.”
Baldwin asked, “You said he used to go to the inn. Could he have been on his way there?”
Turning to him, Smalhobbe shook his head again. “No, if he had been going there, he would have gone straight east. He knew that way well enough. Wistman’s is south and west from his place; there’d be no reason for him to go down there.”
“And when he was drunk he often fought with others?”
Nodding glumly, Smalhobbe sighed. “Yes. Often. He never knew when to stop. I suppose at Beauscyr he never had an opportunity to drink too much, but here he started going to the Fighting Cock regularly, and would have fought every time if it wasn’t for the men he had with him. Others swallowed his insults and boasting while his guards were protecting him.”
“And Smyth allowed this? Surely he would not want to have the locals upset by one loudmouth whose only saving grace was that he was setting a precedent of safety for others? I cannot believe this!”
“I don’t know why it was, all I know is, that’s what happened.”
“I see. In that case, there’s only one other point: who bribed you to keep your silence about Bruther?”
“Sir, I…”
“His name, Smalhobbe! You have caused enough delay already. Who was it? ”
“I can’t tell you. He’d kill me!”
“So it was Thomas Smyth, then.”
The expression of shock on the miner’s face was almost comical. “But… How did you know that?” he gasped.
“You have spent the last few minutes telling us how he is the most powerful man here on the moors, and we know he has had you beaten to enforce that power. It is obvious. There is one thing, though,” Baldwin said, frowning and leaning forward. “Why did he pay you to keep silent about Bruther?”
This time the shrug was helpless, but Smalhobbe’s eyes were lidded with resentment and he refused to answer.
“Very well,” Baldwin continued at last. “But you can tell us this: is it true you used to be an outlaw?”
Sarah felt her breath catch. Henry’s truculence fell away, and she saw the outright panic in his eyes. After so long, she knew that their attempts to begin a new life were finally failing, and with that realization she could not help the thickening in her throat as the sobbing began. Her belly churned and she had to put both hands to the ground as she stared at the knight. “Sir, it’s not true,” she said, her voice broken with emotion.
Baldwin gave her a comforting smile as she knelt defenseless before him. “Tell us the truth, then. We care more for a murder than someone’s past misdeeds.”
Ignoring her husband’s desperate cry of “Sarah!” she said, “Sir, I trust you. Do you swear that we will be left alone if we had no part in Peter Bruther’s death?”
Throwing a quick glance at Simon for confirmation, Baldwin gave a slow nod. “Yes, unless your past includes other murders.”
“That’s fair. Well, then, sir. My husband used to work for a fair and decent master, a burgess in Bristol,” she began. “Henry was his bottler, and we lived with him happily until two years ago.”
“The Rebellion?” Baldwin prompted.
“Yes,” she nodded. “Our master was Robert Martyn. The King imposed huge taxes on Bristol in 1316, and ignored the city’s pleas to reduce them. We sent men all the way to London to explain how they were too high, but he wouldn’t listen. In the end he sent the Sheriff of Gloucester with the posse of the county, and laid siege. They drained the ditch, broke the castle mill and set up siege engines, hurling rocks at us until they took the city.”
“Robert Martyn was outlawed, wasn’t he?” asked Simon.
“Yes, sir. And he has left the realm. But what could we do? We had no home, no money, no master. We were thrown from the city at the height of the famine, and if it was not for some people we met…”
Henry spoke at last, his voice dull and heavy. “They were outlaws, but they took mercy on us and fed us. One man came from the moors here and we decided to see if his stories of tinning were true. He taught me how to hunt and fight, but on my word, I never robbed or stole anything, and I’ve never killed anyone.”
His eyes held Simon’s defiantly, and the bailiff believed him.
15
On their way to the Fighting Cock they rode past the front of Thomas Smyth’s house, and Hugh could not help craning his neck to stare long after they had passed by. The hall looked quiet, with only a few ostlers and a cowherd wandering in the yard, shovelling old hay and muck on to the pile in the corner up close to the entrance. From here it would be collected by cart and taken down to the hall’s strip-fields behind the village for rotting down to manure.
After hearing all that the miner had said, Hugh was intrigued. He had assumed that the death of the miner was a simple killing, a hanging by someone with a grudge against him. He would have placed money on one of the Beauscyr family being responsible. Now, though, he felt sure that it must be something to do with the master tinner in his great hall. Why else would he have paid the Smalhobbes to keep quiet?
It was with a degree of reluctance that he turned to face the road ahead once more, but soon his mood lightened. Hugh was not a man given to long introspection. Before him was an inn, and there he would be given food and good, strong ale. He sighed happily.
Simon found the inn a little less busy than the last time they had visited it. Now there were several tables free, and he strode to a large one under a window away from the hearth, where there was a chance of uninterrupted conversation. Sitting at a bench, he gazed round the room. Two girls were circulating with drinks, but he could see that this was not their best time of day. He caught sight of them yawning extravagantly, and spotted another asleep on a bench at the far wall: their lives were more skewed to the evening than lunch.
Baldwin and the others joined him, the knight taking his seat opposite his friend, and soon they had ordered. The girl whom they had spoken to before was nowhere to be seen, and Simon decided to wait until they had eaten before they asked for her. Their food was a thick, rich stew, with the meat minced so small that it was impossible to identify. Baldwin prodded at it suspiciously with his wooden spoon before looking up at Simon questioningly. “What do you think this is?”