(EXTRACT FROM A PRIVATE JOURNAL KEPT BY LADY ANNE)

The last day of February, 1349

Thaddeus has returned with yet more plundered sheep. He has put them to graze on the common land, which is bare of snow now that the thaw has come.

He and his companions surprised us by emerging from the woodland where the footpath from Pedle Hinton enters Develish. We had been searching the highway to the north and south for days, never expecting them to come along the track. They were herding the flock ahead of them, using Joshua’s dogs to confine stragglers, and we heard the animals’ plaintive bleating before we saw them. Gyles summoned me to watch as the column of sheep issued from the trees, followed by a motley army of women and children on horseback, and Thaddeus and his companions on foot.

Edmund Trueblood appeared first, bearing a tiny boy on his shoulders and leading his horse with 3 young maids in the saddle. The Startout twins, Peter Catchpole and Joshua Buckler followed, each with 2 or 3 frail-looking passengers on their mounts, while at the rear came Thaddeus, guiding a heavily laden pack pony with one hand and, with the other, his charger with a greybeard and woman upon its back. I counted 18 extra souls and asked Gyles where they could have come from. He guessed Pedle Hinton, for he recognised the greybeard as an elder who goes by the name of Harold Talbot.

And so it proved. Thaddeus called out their circumstances from across the moat and, with the agreement of my people, I have given permission for them to remain in Develish once they have served their fortnight’s exclusion. Thaddeus believes some may have kinship with our serfs and has given me their names so that I may search our registers. Certainly, John and Clara Trueblood have no doubt that Edmund’s small charge is part of their family, for he has the look of Edmund at the same age. They have pledged to raise the child as their own, and I don’t doubt others will be as generous.

Thaddeus and his men (they are too well grown now to be called boys) have cleaned one end of the open-sided barn and strung fleeces in the gaps between the upright posts to provide shelter for the Pedle Hinton serfs. Our sheep still have use of the other end and will add warmth from their bodies at night. It is hardly the most inviting of welcomes to our demesne, but the 2-week exclusion has served us well until now. For themselves, Thaddeus and his men use the hut they built when Bourne was here.

I have sent clean clothes and warm broth across on the raft, and in return Thaddeus delivered our chest of gold and a coffer of scrolls from Pedle Hinton. In a private letter atop the documents, he drew my attention to the warnings Pedle Hinton received from France—but did not heed—about the progress of the pestilence. He urged me to study one vellum in particular, dated August, 1348, which he found with its seal intact. This suggested to Thaddeus, as it does to me, that My Lord and his steward never saw it, being dead before it arrived.

The letter was scribed by a French monk who charged himself with informing My Lord of Pedle Hinton that his cousin, a bishop of Normandy, had relinquished his life after days of intense suffering. I record the second paragraph here to remind myself that the rules we follow are wise:

‘In his dying breath, His Grace implored that I request all in his family to protect themselves against this pestilence. His greatest fear was that none will survive and a proud name will be lost. Be comforted that you will do no wrong by closing your doors to sufferers since His Holiness, Pope Clement of Avignon, has granted remission of sins to all who die a painful death. Such benevolence will allow those you exclude to enjoy eternity. Nonetheless, His Grace’s wish was that you embrace life, and he asked that you pray daily for his soul, avoid contact with the sick and pledge yourself to the service of God.’

There is much to read in the words of this unknown bishop, not least his belated realisation that it might be possible to survive the pestilence. I am left to wonder why he didn’t come to this reasoning earlier and why His Holiness thought it kinder to remit sins—a fact which is known only to a handful of French clerics, I imagine—than offer wise advice on avoidance.

The fourth day of March, 1349. Midnight

Thaddeus and his companions will leave again at dawn, and I am sad to have had only one chance to talk with my gentle giant. Clara allowed us the use of her kitchen for a snatched hour once all were asleep, but our meeting was bittersweet, being too short and taken up with business. We both issued warnings as often as we exchanged expressions of tenderness.

Thaddeus worries that Harold Talbot will cause disharmony when I allow him into our enclosure, and urges me to assist his daughter, Alice Bartram, in the management of him. The old man’s mind has gone, causing him to dwell on the sins of others, and he makes his accusations with such force and anger that even Thaddeus’s companions find them unsettling.

In return, I worry that My Lord of Blandeforde’s steward will know Athelstan for an imposter. Thaddeus tells me his plan is to travel to Blandeforde in April, and I am already concerned for him and his companions. The steward’s name is Jacques d’Amiens and I have never met a man so clever or so knowledgeable about his master’s demesnes. In the time I’ve lived in Develish, he has come several times to oversee the collection of taxes, and I am deeply afraid he may have seen my dear friend performing ad opus work inside the moat. If he did, he will recognise him and know him for a serf. Thaddeus’s appearance is too distinctive not to have been noticed.

Thaddeus pays little heed to these fears, for he has no understanding of how eyes are drawn to him because of the tallness of his frame, the darkness of his skin and the fineness of his features. I have begged him to avoid all contact with the steward but he refuses to humour me. He says, quite rightly, that he cannot secure a future for our people without talking to the person who controls My Lord of Blandeforde’s affairs.

Thaddeus has written a long report of all that happened in Bourne, begging me to read it to our people once he and his companions have left. It seems the youths have lost their taste for storytelling, having learnt the last time that there is always a clamour for more. I wonder if they finally understand why Gyles was so reluctant to speak of his final journey with Sir Richard. After all, some things are best kept to oneself.

Thaddeus and his companions will ride first to Dorchester and Melcombe to discover how many still live in those towns. From there, they will travel to the west, charting the deserted demesnes along the way, and then to the east for the same purpose. They expect to arrive in Blandeforde in the second week of April, and Thaddeus hopes their knowledge of how south Dorseteshire fares, along with news of France and Italy from the Pedle Hinton letters, will stand them in good stead when they arrive.

This eve, the raft carried their newly laundered liveries, together with half the gold nobles from Eleanor’s dowry. Our leather workers have created 6 separate saddle packs so that the weight of the coins can be spread evenly between 6 riders. The packs have been stitched in such a way that the coins stand in a series of columns inside them and the slimness of the design should allow them to escape notice beneath the bulkier packs above them. I pray this is so, for it will be a tragedy indeed if bandits believe they see something worth stealing.

Thaddeus is so determined to prove himself a worthy match for me by purchasing a demesne of his own, he’s quite foolhardy enough to give his life in defence of gold.