Read Online The Abbot's Gibbet by Michael Jecks - Free Book Online Page B

growing too quickly, and would soon have a husband.”
    “That’s not fair,” Simon protested. “I was just saying that . . .”
    The Abbot’s Gibbet
    53
    Margaret listened to their banter with half an ear. She was content that Simon was recovered from his black depression. It was in large part due to Baldwin, she knew. Baldwin’s cure for a man with so heavy a weight of misery was to make him laugh, and it had worked better than any medicine. Her husband had aged since his son’s death: before he had looked five years younger than his age of thirty-three, but now he seemed older. The lines were etched deeper into his forehead and at either side of his mouth. Though his hair was still almost black, it had begun to recede, giving him a distinguished appearance. Looking at Baldwin, she could not help but notice the thickening at his waist. Weight was Baldwin’s main enemy now. When she had first met him, he had spent many years as a penniless, wandering knight with no lord. In those days, he and his man-at-arms, Edgar, had been forced to live on whatever they could collect for themselves, eked out with a few pulses or a loaf from a farm. Since inheriting the Furnshill estate from his dead brother, he was able to eat well, and his belly was growing.
    For the rest, he was an attractive figure, she thought. He was tall, and though his brown hair was shot through with silver, the black beard that followed the line of his jaw was unmarked with gray. But he was not the perfect image of a modern knight. Most men were cleanshaven, like her husband. The old King, the present King’s father, had had an aversion to beards and in his day few even wore a moustache. Though times had changed since his death, facial decoration was still rare. It was one concession Baldwin made to his past as a Templar; the knights had always been bearded.
    54
    Michael Jecks
    But Baldwin’s dress did not impress. He sported an old tunic, stained, worn and unfashionable. His boots had hardly any toe and did not follow the courtly trend for elongated points. That he was capable of fighting was proven by the scar on his cheek, stretching from temple to jaw; but that was the sole remaining evidence of a lively past. Margaret eyed him affectionately. He was a good friend, honest, loyal and chivalrous. It was only sad that he was still a bachelor. She was sure he wanted to find a wife, but so far he had been unsuccessful. When she tried to interest him in women she knew, her attempts met with failure. None tempted him, not even Mary, Edith’s young nurse, who had flirted outrageously when she met him. That brought her mind back to her little girl. Edith was getting to be a handful now, and it was a relief to have found a nurse who seemed to understand her, and who was willing to indulge her passion for riding over the moors. Mary had been quiet when she had first come to live with them, but now the fourteen-year-old had become Edith’s best friend—after Hugh, Simon’s servant. He still held a special place in Edith’s capricious heart.
    “What is it, Margaret?” Baldwin asked.
    “I was thinking I should buy you some cloth. That tunic is too old.”
    He stared a moment, eyebrows raised, and there was alarm in his voice. “Old? But this is fine.”
    “It’s old and faded, Baldwin; it’s also too tight round your belly.”
    “Um . . . but it is comfortable.”
    “Comfortable it may be. I’m surprised Edgar hasn’t persuaded you to get a new one.”
    The Abbot’s Gibbet
    55
    Baldwin threw a dark look over his shoulder. Edgar had been his man-at-arms since they had joined the Templars together. All knights operated as a team with their men, training with them and depending on them for protection, just as a modern knight would with his squire. Edgar had proved to be an efficient steward as well as soldier, but he had the servant’s love of ostentation. If the master displayed grandeur, some was reflected on the servant. And Edgar wanted