“Yes. So what?”

“Are you being intentionally dense?” Baldwin sighed. “Look, he was muttering about copying his father. Why would he want to do that – rob Wat Meavy, I mean. It seems to me he must have heard something about his father that day which made him decide to rob.”

“Something he had heard made him choose to rob Meavy?” Simon repeated blankly.

“It is possible. And yet, why would he say that he was ‘no worse, after all’?” Baldwin stared hard at his horse’s neck. “Simon, I just wonder…”

“What?”

“If he had already been told by Sir William not to steal and rob anymore, and then had heard that his father had used to rob as well, maybe that would have been enough to drive him to attack someone.”

Simon was dumbfounded. “That’s a very big guess,” he managed at last.

“If Sir William had already told his son to stop stealing, he would certainly be enraged to hear about Wat Meavy.”

“Yes, I suppose so. But to suggest that Sir William himself…”

“We know Sir William fought for the King during various wars; it would hardly be surprising if during that time he had a chance of spoils which were not strictly legitimate.”

“But how could John have heard something about his father?”

“Bruther.” Baldwin avoided Simon’s eye.

“Bruther!” Simon exploded. “How in the name of God do you come to think that? There is nothing to suggest that Bruther knew anything about Sir William, and now you say blithely that Bruther caused John to go beserk like this – what’s got into you?”

“I think,” said Baldwin slowly and precisely, “that it is possible that Bruther heard from his father about something that Sir William had done in the past. Perhaps a long time in the past, I do not know. We do know that Sir William was a soldier, like I said, but Thomas Smyth was too. The battle today proved that. He was highly efficient in the way he set out his troops, and if Sir William had not responded so effectively, it is likely that Smyth would have slaughtered the Beauscyr men. It is possible that Thomas knows something about Sir William. It would explain a lot, after all. Think how easily Sir William gave in to the miner. He said it was because Smyth was legally entitled to be there on the moors, and that may be so, but I find it difficult to believe.”

They had come to the main track across the moors now, and turned southwest on to the packed earth of the road.

“If I am right, Sir William was fearful of the miner because of what Thomas Smyth knew of his past. And perhaps…” He suddenly broke off and stared ahead blankly. “Simon – I have been a cretin! Of course, there’s only the one explanation!”

“What?” asked Simon sarcastically. “That Thomas Smyth threatened the knight with exposure if he didn’t let the tinners farm tin on his land? Or do you think that the knight knew something about the tinner that made him keep from his land anyway? Baldwin, I think you’ve…”

“Simon, listen! Please, just for a minute.” Baldwin was smiling broadly. “Think on this: Bruther normally had men to protect him, all the time he was on the moors. Yet on the very night that Sir William met Thomas Smyth, Bruther suddenly did not need those men again. Strange, don’t you think? Then again, think about this: John met Bruther that night and they certainly exchanged words – and we hear that he rushed off shortly afterward to Chagford and attacked the first man he met. Hardly the behavior of a rational squire, I would have thought.”

“I think you must have drunk too much of good Farmer Meavy’s ale – you’re babbling,” said Simon, but he kept a suspicious eye on his friend. After a few minutes, he lost his patience. “All right, then, Baldwin. So what do you mean? What do you guess from these two hints?”

“Ah, Simon, later, later, old friend. I see we’re heading for both Beauscyr Manor and Smyth’s house. Why don’t we go to see Thomas Smyth first? It is not far out of our way.”

And he refused to discuss the matter further.

24

By the time they trotted into Smyth’s yard, Hugh was becoming desperate. He did not dare stop while the others carried on, for he knew how his slowness annoyed the knight, and was sure that if he stopped to water the roadside Baldwin would refuse to halt, and the three would leave him. Hugh was still too nervous of the idea of Crockern to want to be left far behind while his master and the others disappeared into the distance. So he lurched on painfully, his lips pressed firmly together in mounting anguish as the liquid sloshed painfully in his bladder.

The yard was busy, with servants leading horses out for exercise or cleaning the stable of manure and soiled straw, while others were unloading a wagon of provisions for the kitchen. In the midst of this bustle, Hugh dropped from his horse and tossed the reins to Edgar, who received his mute plea with supercilious amusement, and rushed to the stable wall. After only a few seconds of agony, the relief was intense, and he smiled foolishly at the stones of the wall before him. Looking for his master, he saw the three walking behind George Harang toward the hall. He knew he should go after them but he could not hurry. There was no point, he thought. Simon and the knight were only going inside to ask more questions, and they had not needed his help so far.

Inside the hall, Simon and Baldwin stood in a huddle with Thomas Smyth and stared round sadly.

The room held almost twenty men injured in the morning’s fighting, and Smyth’s servants rushed hither and thither, carrying bowls of water and torn cloth for bandages. His wife was there too, holding a man’s hand and offering words of comfort. She glanced up as Simon entered, wiping at her forehead, but he could see her mind was on the wounded man. A surgeon knelt by another figure, obviously hard-pressed to see to all the slashes and stabs.

While Simon watched in fascinated horror, the surgeon finished inspecting a head wound. The bailiff could not drag his eyes away as the doctor gently pushed a finger into the thickly clotted wound on the scalp. Quickly now, he took the proffered razor and shaved the man’s head. While the assistant held the white-faced tinner by the shoulders, the surgeon crouched by his head with a pair of large forceps. At a signal, the forceps were inserted into the wound and quickly hauled back, now with a fragment of white bone gleaming amid the gore. After a shriek, the wounded man stilled and calmed, panting, with his eyes wide in fear and pain, but now when the surgeon investigated the wound again, he wore a smile. Washing the blood away and cleaning it with egg white, he appeared well pleased, and sutured the skin together carefully, taking a pellet of thick pitch-smelling medicine and smothering it over the wound. Then he rose with a sigh and moved to the next man, a youth of only one or two and twenty, who had the broken shaft of an arrow jutting from his shoulder. He wept openly as the surgeon approached, thick tears of terror falling from his thin and dirty cheeks.

Thomas Smyth watched sadly, but looking up, he caught his wife’s eye. She stiffened, upright, holding his gaze, then flashed him a quick smile before turning her attention back to the figure before her. That brief recognition made his chest tighten in pride. After the drama out at the camp he had known he must explain about Martha Bruther and his dead son before Christine could hear of them from others. Even as the men were being carried indoors he had pulled her to one side.

She had said nothing as he spoke, and he felt his panic rise at the thought of the hurt he was causing her. But then she ducked her head. “It was a long time ago, Thomas. Before I even knew you. And you kept your sadness over his death to yourself to save my feelings?” He could say nothing, mutely staring at her, and after a moment she touched his arm gently. “Come, Husband. We must make sure that no more die like your poor son.”