The emphatic confirmation made the bailiff and his friend exchange worried looks. Both men wanted to avert what promised to be a bruising and vicious battle. The miners numbered more than the force of forty mounted men-at-arms that Sir William could field, but other guards from the fort were on their way by foot, and if the old knight thought he had the advantage he could attack.
Baldwin leaned forward and met the unflinching, determined eyes of the miner. “This makes no sense. You have lost a man, but that’s hardly a good enough reason to risk the lives of all these others, Thomas. And we do not know that it was John who killed Bruther. Yes, he might have had an opportunity, but we think he was not in the area when Bruther was killed. He was over toward Chagford.”
There was a quick doubt in the miner’s face at that. Baldwin continued softly, “And Robert himself was nowhere near the place. We know that on the words of three people who saw him.” He saw no reason to say that one of the three was Smyth’s own daughter. “He was not involved.”
“So who did kill Peter?”
“We wondered about you, ” admitted Simon frankly.
“Adam Coyt saw you near Bruther’s place that day. What were you doing up there?”
To his surprise, the miner gave him a twisted grin. “Me?” He turned and beckoned to Harang, who stood sharpening a long dagger some feet off, staring up the plain to the group of horsemen. “George, come here a minute. Right, tell these two what you and I were doing on the night that Peter died.”
The thickset man stared at Baldwin and Simon suspiciously. Seeing Thomas Smyth nod, he shrugged. “We were here at the camp for most of the afternoon, checking on the blowing-house and seeing how it was working. When it got late, we left to go and see Peter up at his house. The day before, my master had offered him a job overseeing the smelting. It would make sense having someone here we knew and trusted to look after the ingots. We went to hear his answer, but the place was empty so we rode over to see Sir William at the hall.”
“You must have trusted Bruther to offer him that,” said Simon, pouring more drink. The jug was misshapen, the earthenware cracked and the spout broken, but it was not this that made him spill the fluid. It was the miner’s next words.
“He was my son, bailiff.”
The two men sat back and gaped. Baldwin found himself thinking: So that is why he always called the young man by his Christian name – why did I not realize!
Simon stammered, “But why… Surely you… Why the hell didn’t you tell us!”
“Why the hell should I? Would it have changed the way you investigated his death? What would you have done, bailiff, if he had been your son? The same as me, I would think. I wanted to find out who had done it so that I could meet the killer and treat him the way he served my son. My only son.” He groaned in despair.
“I do not understand, Thomas,” said Baldwin gently.
“You say he was your son, but…?”
He looked at the knight and smiled weakly. “My wife is a decent woman, Sir Baldwin. She has been good to me, and she gave birth to many children for me. But only Alicia survived; all the others died at birth or within a few years. Then poor Christine could not have another, and I learned to be content, because I had Peter.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “His mother was Martha Bruther. She was lovely, widowed young, and I got to know her before I married. I had not even met Christine when I wooed Martha. I wanted her, I wanted her so much I was prepared to marry her, but she wouldn’t have me. She’d tried marriage, she said, and preferred life on her own. Her husband used to beat her and it put her off taking another – she had no need of a man. But she was proud of Peter, our son.” He stopped, staring past Baldwin’s shoulder as the memories came back.
“You could have saved us hours if we had known this before,” Simon said peevishly. “We could have concentrated on the other suspects.” And then he cursed his insensitivity.
“I couldn’t tell you before,” Smyth explained, “not with my wife there. It would have hurt her too much. So I kept it back and tried to help you as far as I could. I didn’t think it mattered.”
“And no more does it now,” said Baldwin compassionately. “But we come back to the main issue: what will you do with Robert Beauscyr? He is innocent, I am sure, and you do not want to hurt the man who could become your son-in-law, do you?”
The miner’s mouth dropped open, but before he could respond, there was a shout, and a man ran up to them, pointing to the plain. “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
Smyth stood and gave Baldwin a brittle smile. “I think Sir William has decided for us. We defend ourselves.”
It was the arrival of the foot-soldiers from Beauscyr that made Sir William decide to attack. His seneschal had rounded up all the men in the demesne as well as the spare guards from the hall, and made them hurry to join their master, all grasping whatever was at hand when the call came. Mattocks, peat shovels, axes and hammers were their meager weapons, and all wore the same fixed and anxious stares, too scared to run off, but fearful of the outcome of the day. If it was a battle to protect their children and wives, they would have fought to the death with stoic determination as their sires had against the French, the Danes and the Normans, but this was not their fight. This was an argument between miners and their master, and they had no wish to leave their families fatherless in another man’s feud.
As they came to the plain, a lookout saw them and rode straight to the knight, who told him to get back and order the men to rest. Sir William would soon lead them into battle.
For some time he sat watching the vill, frowning. The bailiff and his friend had been gone for too long: it was not his imagination, the sun cast strong shadows in this light, and he had watched his own move over a heather bush and on. John sat moodily on his horse beside him, while Sir Ralph gazed down at the camp with a kind of tranquil boredom, as if in this wasteland there was nothing else to hold his attention. When he heard a horse snort loudly, Sir William glanced over his shoulder at the man behind, and saw there too that he had the same quiet stillness. Few looked at him; their eyes were all fixed on the camp.
He had never expected to ride out again at his time of life. Seeing his men, all the guards from the fort and the servants who could ride, he felt a curious sensation that this was all wrong. It should not be him here, it should be one of his sons leading the men. He was too old. His time had passed, even as the old King’s had, with the fierce and brutal clashes in Wales over thirty years ago. Then he had been young and eager, a forceful leader of men, a man of honor with other renowned names at his side.
They were good days. The risks had been high, the plunder great, and for all the men who survived there was a feeling of achievement and pride. Even after the debacle of the expedition from Anglesey the tall man from Beauscyr had taken a good portion of the spoils for himself.
A quick frown darkened his brow as he thought again of the short, dark man with the flinty eyes who had been in his company, who had stood apart from the others and fought alone, as if he was no part of the rest of the group but an outsider who had joined merely to offer assistance when needed. Now this same man Thomas Smyth had caught his son, thirty years on, and for no reason.
Whirling his horse round, he motioned to a man nearby. “Take a message to the others,” he said, issuing instructions quickly and sending him on his way. His eyes stayed fixed on the rider as he galloped up the hill and disappeared over the other side, then he glanced at his son. “Come, John. Let’s free your brother.”
Simon and Baldwin watched grimly as men poured over the brow of the hill and walked, a straggling mass, toward the vill. From his place behind his master, Edgar could see some of the defenses prepared for them. True, there was no high rampart or wall like that at Beauscyr, but all over the camp large rocks had been scattered, making it harder for horses to travel fast, and these, along with the holes dug out on the plain, should stop any charge. The miners stood in small groups, with outlying men at each side who carried bows, while in the middle was the greater force of men with arms, holding swords, picks and iron bars in fists gone suddenly clammy.