The Mad Monk of Gidleigh

Chapter Seven

When Baldwin ran to the stable and bellowed for Jack, he was aware of a strange feeling that things weren’t right.

Partly it must be the fact that Edgar was missing. Every other time he had been forced to raise the Hue and Cry, Edgar had been at his side. When Baldwin rode in search of a felon or some other assumed miscreant, Edgar was a permanent guard, always nearby. But today Edgar was at the manor protecting Jeanne, Baldwin’s wife.

Edgar had been his servant for more years than he cared to remember now, originally his sergeant in the Knights Templar. Every knight went into battle with a trusted man-at-arms to back up the knight’s charge, to protect his flank and to fight at his side, loyal unto death. After the Templars had been destroyed, Edgar had refused to leave Baldwin’s side.

However, his would not be the only missing face, Baldwin knew. The compact, wiry hunter, John Black, who had joined Baldwin on some of his early chases, was dead; he had fallen from his pony into a river during the floods of the winter of 1321. Tanner, too, who had been so successful as the Constable of the Hundred, a large, stolid man with a face and head that might have been carved from granite, had suddenly been stricken with a malady last summer, and had succumbed in three days.

Life was nothing if not fleeting. Baldwin couldn’t help but notice that the years appeared to flash past with increasing speed, and the thought was sad. He had only just found a woman with whom he felt he could spend the remainder of his life, and he regretted the years before he had met her. They felt wasted. Although he was no modern chivalrous knight, a lust-filled, salacious fool like those who thought that the only battle worth fighting was that for a woman’s virginity, he sometimes found himself thinking that if only he had met Jeanne earlier, he would have gained more enjoyment from his life.

He was getting old. He detested the idea that he might soon leave Jeanne, a feeling made still more poignant by the fact of his daughter, little Richalda. Almost one year old, she was utterly dependent upon Jeanne and him, and he felt that responsibility keenly. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he truly had a reason to live, or so he felt. He had loved Jeanne since he first met her in Tavistock nearly four years ago, and he knew that she loved him in return, but all the time he was aware that she was a strong personality in her own right. If he were to die, his widow would mourn him, mourn him deeply, but she would not expire for despair. Nor would he want her to.

Still, with the wind in his face and a powerful mount beneath him, it was impossible to feel gloomy. Men died on days like this, and if he were to die today, he would do so with a smile on his face, glad that he had spent his life honourably.

Unlike this priest, he thought, and the smile was wiped from his face in a moment. It was hard to understand how a man who had professed himself determined to live by God’s own rules could slip so dramatically into such a mire of dishonour and shame.

Baldwin had never met the cleric from Gidleigh, but he had heard that the fellow was a youngster. If that was true, Baldwin could begin to comprehend the story: a lonely young man placed in a drear and miserable location near the moors. Long winter nights in which to brood; chill, wet weather to make him wonder at God’s reasons for creating such a land; monosyllabic neighbours whose dialect would be largely incomprehensible and who would either distrust a foreigner or be so respectful to a priest that they would find it hard to open their mouths in his presence. And in the middle of all this misery, a sudden ray of light: a young woman, her lips promising soft kisses, her breasts begging to be caressed, her body suggesting fire and warmth and rest.

Baldwin had been a celibate warrior monk for most of his adult life, and he was all too aware of the temptations of the flesh. But he had not succumbed – apart from a few occasions before he had taken his vows – and there was no reason why this fellow should have done so either.

What was he doing heading this way? There were only two explanations Baldwin could envisage. Either he was expecting to escape: flee the shire by running east or flee the country by jumping on a ship; or he wanted to get to the Bishop’s palace and put his side of the story in the Bishop’s court. If he could make it that far, he would escape the secular authorities.

He would not be the first priest to do so, Baldwin knew. Stories abounded of priests who tried to avoid the shaming experience of being captured and gaoled, called liars when they claimed Benefit of Clergy, until they were taken to the Lord’s court and could prove that they could recite the Pater Noster. That was usually good enough. It was rare for a lord to dismiss his claim after that, and for good reason. Woe betide the knight or banneret who dared flout the authority of Mother Church. She protected Her own. The Pope was the unchallenged ruler of the spiritual world, the successor to St Paul, more powerful than any monarch. A king could have you executed; the Pope could condemn you to hellfire for all eternity.

Charitably, Baldwin wondered if that was the cleric’s aim, to get to Exeter, so that he could fall on his knees before his Bishop and apologise, confessing his guilt so that he could perform a penance that would save his soul. It was quite possible.

The alternative was that the fellow was making his way east or to Topsham to catch a ship. That was perfectly likely too, but Baldwin was not persuaded. If he wanted to avoid capture entirely, the easiest route away from danger would be away from the Bishop’s authority. A man determined to survive outside the law could live rough for weeks on end in the woods and moors heading westwards, and there were plenty of ports that way, too. Why run the risk of a brother cleric recognising him by running straight towards the Cathedral where he had once lived, when he could head in the opposite direction?

No, Baldwin was comfortable with the inference that this cleric was trying to get back to the Bishop. And Baldwin was determined to prevent him succeeding. The murderer of a young woman and a child deserved a little discomfort by being held in the local gaol for a short while, so far as Baldwin was concerned.

When he had mounted his horse and trotted out to the roadway, there was already a crowd of armed men and boys waiting, most of them mounted on large horses better suited to ploughing or carting than galloping, who had arrived in response to the horn-blast and shouting of the man from North Tawton.

Baldwin had to stop himself glancing about for his old Constable, Tanner. Tanner would have made all these men sort themselves into some sort of order, arranging them by location, to prevent any fears of fighting among them. However, in Tanner’s place there were now two Constables, Godwen and Thomas, both of whom were studiously ignoring each other although they sat a scant four yards apart. Seeing them, Baldwin groaned to himself.

This chase might well become more arduous than he had expected.

Piers walked behind Huward and his burden, his heart leaden as he saw how the miller stumbled and tripped in his misery.

At any other time it would have been a pleasant walk. For once there were no clouds, the wind had stilled, and the low sun was casting a bright light all about. Shadows stretched out against the dark soil, and trees looked stark without their leaves.

The lane was sunken between walls on either side, and Piers could see the great hills of Dartmoor to the west. At this time of day, the sunlight caught their southern flanks and lighted the heather with a golden hue. First thing in the morning, when the weather was clear, the sun had an oddly pink colour to it. It had always made Piers look. Somehow he never thought it looked natural.

Nothing was natural today, he reckoned as he set his jaw and glowered at the ground before him. The mud was almost ankle-deep again here, and he could feel it soaking into his boots and squelching between his chilled toes. He would have to clean the leather carefully later, when he had a chance, or he’d have to replace the boots before long, and that was an expense he could live without if possible.

Mary looked like a sleeping child again. Her eyes were closed, and her face rested on Huward’s shoulder just as though she had dropped off in her father’s arms. Just as Piers’s own daughter used to. He sighed; when they got to the church, he would give thanks to God for the fact that his own daughter was fine, happily married, a mother herself. He could not imagine how he would have behaved if she had been slaughtered in this way.

It was plain lucky that the miller had a wife to look after as well as everything else. If not, Piers was sure that Huward would have run after the pissy priest, no matter what his master said. That would have caused many more problems, and Piers didn’t want problems. His post was an annual elected one, and he saw no reason to make trouble. This death was bad enough. Fines for breaking the King’s Peace, a fine for the weapon that was used, more costs would undoubtedly mount, and all when the vill had to cope with the death of a popular girl.

They had reached the top of Gidleigh now, and the road curved towards the castle and church. There Piers caught sight of Elias once more. The old peasant had a nervous expression on his face, and Piers could see him glancing from side to side as though anticipating an attack from some quarter. Then his eye lighted on Osbert, and his attention focused.

Piers saw his expression, and when he looked at Osbert, he could see why Elias was staring so hard. Poor Osbert looked devastated. He looked desperate to conceal his tears and misery as though such sentiments were unmanly, sniffing and wiping at his eyes with a hand that was quick and cursory, as though he was pretending that there were no tears there, that he was too strong to weep for a girl, as though he was simply scratching at an irritation. It was unnecessary. Everyone in the vill knew that he had adored Mary. Most men had, especially those who were marriageable. Osbert must have dreamed of owning her, Piers thought, and they would have made a pleasing couple, her so slim and attractive, him bold and strong and tall. Yes, they’d have made a handsome pair.

The sadness assailed him again and Piers’s mind turned to other things. He would have to stop with Elias and take a moment to speak to him, but the little band swept on, and it would have seemed disrespectful to the memory of Mary if he had tried to collar the older peasant.

He would have to talk to him later, Piers thought to himself as he followed the weeping Huward into the church itself. At the door he turned back, but instead of staring at Elias, his gaze went to Osbert. Osbert met his look for a moment, but then the young man turned and walked slowly back towards the mill.

It was much later that Ben walked into the house and spat at the floor when he realised there was no meal waiting. His parents were too taken up with grief to worry about mundane things like food. He wasn’t, though. He was starving. Hadn’t eaten since late morning.

He’d been supposed to go out and help Osbert with the hedging on Huward’s fields after the inquest, but he couldn’t be bothered. It wasn’t as though his father would punish him, not if he kept his head low, and he didn’t want to stand in a cold field, feet freezing to the soil, helping Osbert to cut part-way through branches until they could be bent back, fixing them in place by hooking them under stakes. They didn’t have to be enormously strongly held, because it was the ditch and high turf wall that held the animals in their pasture, but it was good to tidy up the hedges at the top, if only because it was a useful source of firewood.

No, hacking at a blackthorn hedge was not Ben’s idea of fun. Instead he’d gone to an ale-house on the Chagford road and drunk himself into a merry state as soon as the inquest was over. Not that the mood was going to last if he didn’t quickly find something to eat.

‘Come back, then, have you?’

‘Osbert! What are you doing, sneaking in like that? You should–’

‘You should hold your tongue, you should. I’ve been working while you’ve been out drinking again, haven’t you? While your sister was being taken to church, too – dead.’

‘Leave it, Osbert. I used up my grief when I heard she was dead.’

‘You managed to make it last a whole day?’

‘Very funny. I suppose you’ll keep it going for a good long while, won’t you? You’ll make up for any lack on my part.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You couldn’t keep your eyes off her, could you? Always fancied her arse. Did you ever get a chance to feel her up?’

‘No, Ben, I didn’t. I wouldn’t have if I’d been given the chance, either. Because it’s not right that a man should do that to a woman outside of marriage.’

‘Oh, it’s all right, Os. If you want a woman,’ Ben continued, eyes open wide in innocence, ‘why don’t you go to see Anna at Jordan’s ale-house? I could give you a recommendation there. She’s very good. The way she wriggles her backside is–’

‘Be silent, you dunghill worm. You can treat me with contempt if you like, but on this day, when your sister’s being taken to her grave, the least you can do is go there to witness it. Why do you stand here chewing at my ears when you should be with your mother?’

‘Oh, by Christ’s passion! Give me strength to cope with a big man’s big heart. What good will it do Mary for me to be there? I grieved enough for her the day she died. There are other folk in church who’ll say prayers for her. Who knows, maybe even I shall sometime soon.’

‘You loved her before. Why do you hate her so much now?’

‘I didn’t love her. I never loved her. It’s different for you, you wanted her body: that lovely scut and her breasts like two great bladders waiting to be squeezed. And she’d have liked it too. It’s a shame you missed your chance. Losing her to a cleric! God’s blood, I wouldn’t have thought he had the life in his bone to satisfy her.’

Osbert had kept his patience, but he could feel it draining. ‘I respected your sister, that’s all,’ he said quietly. ‘And you should revere her now all you have is a memory.’

‘Ah, yes, a memory. Sad, you don’t even have that, do you? But I forgot! You did see her, didn’t you? I was there. I saw you follow her down to the stream when she went to bathe last summer. I was intrigued to see why you were walking so quietly down that path.’

‘I wasn’t walking quietly!’ Osbert spat. ‘You make this up. You imagine the worst you could do yourself, then think others might copy you.’

Ben continued as though Osbert hadn’t spoken. ‘I went after you, and I tiptoed, just like you did. You turned into the wood, and when you came to the river, where she was lying naked in the water, I saw you. I saw you fiddling with your tarse…’

‘I didn’t, you liar!’

‘All over the sight of my naked sister. Naughty, naughty Os.’

Unable to control his anger, Osbert leaped to catch Ben, but the smaller man slipped aside. Osbert felt a tingling in his arm as his momentum carried him onwards. When he stopped, he turned to catch at Ben again, but then he saw Ben had come around behind him, and now he stood with a dagger held ready, his head low in a fighting stance, eyes wary, alert to any movement.

‘Try that again, and you’ll get worse, Os,’ he said, pointing at a long cut on Osbert’s arm that dripped blood. ‘And you shouldn’t fear, anyway. I won’t say anything. I know you adored my sister, you even went to watch her in the river naked, and I saw what effect that had on you, but I won’t tell anyone. Why should I? I never liked her anyway. Bitch. It’s better that she’s gone. Especially since she seems to have been playing the whore herself. Think about it. You’re better off without her!’

‘She told me, you know!’ Osbert spat. ‘I know all about you.’

‘What?’ Ben demanded, waving his knife nearer Osbert, sweeping it back and forth.

‘You accuse me of lust, but it was you who tried to take her,’ Osbert spat.

The knife darted forward and Osbert had to slip to one side to avoid it.

‘You’re lying! She swore she wouldn’t… I didn’t touch her!’

Osbert laughed mirthlessly. ‘She swore she wouldn’t talk? She did. I know what you tried, boy!’

‘I didn’t try anything.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t the monk killed her, eh? Maybe he just found her and thought…’ Osbert’s mouth fell open at the thought. ‘Did you kill her?’

‘Me? Why should I do a thing like that, eh?’

‘To silence her! To stop her telling people how you tried to make her sleep with you!’

‘No, and you’re mad to think it.’

‘You haven’t liked her since then, have you?’

‘It was the priest killed her. You’re just mad with jealousy of him. That’s why you’re making up this tale. You’re mad!’

Ben chuckled low in his throat. It sounded almost like a snarl. Then he cautiously stepped backwards, and sidled out through the door.

Osbert’s anger had left him now, and in its place was an emptiness. He should have defended her. He should have fought Ben for that foul assertion. As if any man could think that beautiful Mary was in any way a whore. If he heard Ben insulting her memory again, he’d kill him. Yes, and take the consequences.

Osbert remembered what he had said and shivered. The thought that Ben might go about spreading that story to others was fearful. He couldn’t deny it was true. That time, when he’d first seen her nude, it had snared his heart. She was so perfect, so beautiful. Small, but large-hipped and large-breasted, perfect.

If people realised just how badly Os had desired her, they might think he could have killed her after raping her. Ben would enjoy telling tales, spreading rumours. There was no point in it; it couldn’t do anything to benefit Ben, or anyone else, but it would cause pain and shame. Ben was right about one thing: Os didn’t want others to hear that tale. They would think that he wasn’t enough of a man to take Mary. That was shameful. Nearly as shameful as their thinking that he had taken her against her will.

There could only be one purpose for Ben to spread the story, and that was to cause hurt. That was one thing at which the miller’s son excelled.

Ben was bitter, but at least he had punctured the thick ox’s self-satisfaction. How did he hear about that… Mary must have told him about it. No one else knew. Only him and her – yet Os knew. Mary must have said something, the cow!

There was nothing shameful about it. He was a young man, and she was a woman. He only wanted her to lie with him, so he could know what it was like. He did love her, after all, and all his friends had tupped girls in the vill. He had thought she would be willing, that she’d look on it as a great compliment. It wasn’t as if it was rare for a brother and sister. He’d have agreed if she had asked him.

If only she had agreed, he wouldn’t have hated her so much then. But she not only rejected him, she laughed at him. Made him feel stupid, small – nothing. She laughed at him, as though he had no manhood for her to consider, and that made him angry. He had caught her, made her hiss with pain as he pushed her to her knees, and then he hit her, to teach her to laugh at him. That was why he had grown to hate her, to loathe the sight of her. If he could, he would have killed her. Except there was always that little place in his heart which watched her with the jealous eye of a lover. A lover whose adoration could never be consummated. That was why he refused to honour her in death, even though part of him felt desolate that she was gone.

Flora was no better. He had never tried to sleep with her, but she was fearful of him – probably because Mary had warned her. If she had told Os, who else might she not have told? Shit! The bitch should have kept her mouth shut! There was no telling what trouble she could have brought to Ben.

Os had wanted her. He had watched her with his great bovine eyes whenever she passed nearby, almost drooling with delight. When she spoke to him kindly, he all but fell over at her feet like a puppy. Pathetic arse. He should have taken her. That’s what a real man would have done.

Suddenly Ben had a vision of another man, the sort who would have taken her without compunction: Esmon, Sir Ralph’s son.

‘Esmon,’ he muttered thoughtfully. ‘You were up there the day she was killed, weren’t you?’

He hadn’t been with Elias quite all the time out in the field. Elias had gone to empty his bladder twice, and once Ben had gone himself, and that was the time when he had seen his sister alone there by the gate. Only a short time later, he had seen Esmon riding nearby as well. Everyone was off hunting down the wayward cleric, and yet if Ben was to mention that sighting, many in the vill would immediately think that the Lord of the Manor’s own son should be questioned.

Ben gave a shrug. He didn’t miss his sister – not really. She hadn’t cared about him, so he wasn’t going to waste his feelings on her. She was nothing to him. She had rejected him, while opening her legs for that damned priest. Fine. And the priest killed her.

It was interesting to think of Esmon being there, though…