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David Holcroft was easy-going about many things, but the Abbot was his master; and Abbot Robert was known to abhor the messy habits of some of the townspeople. He would be sure to demand that Elias was amerced. Will tutted to himself, and was about to go and beat on Elias’ door when he stopped, lips pursed in readiness for a whistle. He could just make out the shape of an old and worn boot, and the sight was strangely out of place. Elias was not the sort to throw out an old boot: he’d be more likely to take it to be mended. Will blinked, peering down into the gloom, then rushed forward, his baskets bouncing and spinning in the road behind him. Under the mound of rubbish he could see the shape of a leg. Grabbing the boot and hurriedly scraping round it, he stopped with the horrified realization that there was a body concealed beneath the mound. Seizing the ankle, he hauled, grimly noting that the flesh was as cold as any of the carcasses he handled in his shop. Whoever this was, he was not living. The mound shifted, rags and bits of pastry and bones falling as he dragged the body free. A knee appeared, and a thigh. The hose were sodden and rucked up as he pulled. More garbage slid aside with a revolting sucking noise, and now he could see the other leg. Gingerly, he gripped it and leaned back. A muscle snapped in his shoulder, but still he tugged, and at last the body came The Abbot’s Gibbet
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    free with a slight jerk, and he fell back on his rump.
    “Ow! God’s blood!”
    Standing, he rubbed his backside, then his shoulder, and walked forward to view the red-leather-clad corpse. Staring in horror, he cursed again, more softly now, and swallowed hard.
    Sir Baldwin Furnshill winced as a gust of wind threw dust in his eyes, and blinked furiously. “This fair had better match your expectations, Margaret,” he said as his eyes streamed. “After travelling so far, first from Crediton to Lydford, and now on to Tavistock, all I wish to see is a comfortable seat and a good trencher of stew.”
    “Baldwin, of course you’ll find it enjoyable,” she said lightly. Her fair hair was whipping free of her wimple and she had to keep pushing back the stray tresses.
    “You do not care, madam, about my soreness or boredom. No! So long as you can feel the quality of the cloths on sale, so long as you can try on the newest gloves, the best shoes, and buy the choicest spices from around the world, you will be content.”
    “No,” her husband grunted. “She won’t be made happy by feeling bolts of cloth and trying on shoes; she won’t be happy until she’s bought the lot.”
    Baldwin wiped his face. “ I will not be happy until we have arrived and I have finally managed to get some rest.”
    “In any case, husband, I seem to remember that you first suggested we should come to the fair, so that you could buy some new plates.”
    “That’s very different. We need plates for when we have to entertain lords,” said Simon. He had not realized how many feasts he would be expected to give as 50
    Michael Jecks
    bailiff of Lydford Castle. To be fair, he accepted that a good display of plates could only serve to enhance his reputation as well.
    “And we need new curtains and clothing for when we entertain,” Margaret added sweetly. Baldwin guffawed. Margaret, a slim and tall woman with the fresh complexion of one who had lived all her life on the moors, had gradually started to gain weight. The lines of sadness on her forehead and the bruises under her eyes had faded, and she had regained her sense of humor. After the death of her son, followed by her recent ordeal in Crediton,1 she had lost weight alarmingly quickly. Baldwin had been concerned that she might be wasting away. He had seen other women who had simply lost the desire to live when their sons had died. Luckily, he reflected, Margaret not only had Simon, but also Edith, her daughter. The girl had forced her mother to concentrate on life, for Edith still needed her. They