The Mad Monk of Gidleigh

Chapter Thirty-Seven

It was the garderobe that gave them access. Os, like many others, had collected the box filled with wood ash from beneath the seat of the little room fitted on the outer wall of the solar. The room was shingled, and it took Os only a few minutes, once he had manhandled the ladder into place, to remove some of the thin chestnut tiles and open the roof. From then, he could climb in, axe held ready, and wait for Baldwin and Simon to join him.

Simon felt as though there was a thrilling in his veins, as if a thousand thousand birds were beating their wings along each of his limbs, the soft fluttering heightening all his senses, making his ears hear with greater sensitivity, making his eyes see more clearly, making his brain operate at twice its normal speed.

It was only the three of them. Baldwin wanted the rest of the men to grab the largest baulk of timber and pound at the door. That would distract Brian and his men. Meanwhile, the three would enter by the garderobe, hurry downstairs, and attack from inside. Osbert’s task was to get to the door and break or remove the bars so that all the others could pile inside. Baldwin and Simon would hold off the others so he could do so. They had crept down the stairs, soon reaching the lower chamber. There they found the guard whom Lady Annicia had killed. The door beyond was open, and they stood a moment listening. Then, on Baldwin’s count of three, they thrust the curtains aside and ran in.

Brian was in the middle of the floor. He saw Baldwin and turned to face him with a snarl on his face, still holding his crossbow. Osbert saw it, but ignored the danger. He ran straight on, past Brian, who turned to try to fire at him, but he was too slow, and the bolt went wide, punching a neat hole in the plaster of the wall. Then Osbert was at Brian’s men. His axe rose and swept around. Blood flew in gouts, and then he was at the bars.

The men tried to stop him. He had shattered the skull of one, who fell instantly. A second had a vast gouge in his shoulder, which had a flap of skin that flopped wildly, but the two last men were unhurt, and even as they reeled from the shock of Osbert’s attack, they were preparing to stop him reaching the door, for all could see his intention.

It was Simon who now flew at them. While Os thumped into the door at full speed and began to drag at the timbers, Simon arrived behind them with a scream so intense, so visceral, that one man shrieked in response. Both turned to fight him, forgetting for a moment the threat that Os posed. He pulled the first bar fully back, reached for the second and hauled, but the thing was stuck fast. It wouldn’t move. The pressure from outside had pinned the wood in the stone slot, and he couldn’t make it shift. He cursed, sweat pouring from his brow, and then punched it with main force. In his fist he felt a bone crunch and break, and then the bar moved, just a little, and he could slide it back.

The door slammed open, knocking Os from his feet, and in rushed the force, led by the Reeve of Chagford and Hugh. The two men fighting with Simon were despatched, and then Osbert could go to Flora. She sat in her chair, and he picked her up, unheeding of the pain in his hand, and carried her outside.

Baldwin had gone straight to Brian. He must reach the felon before he could kill the women. Brian had the crossbow in his hand, but it was useless now, so much sinew and wood. He had no time to reload and fire. Instead he swung it upwards, blocking Baldwin’s first blow. Baldwin slipped down and stabbed, but the blade went wide, knocked aside by the crossbow. It was only when Baldwin pushed forward and tried to get inside Brian’s reach, that he nicked Brian. He felt the blade grate on bone as he darted forward, and although Brian said nothing, Baldwin could see how his mouth became set. Baldwin had hurt him.

The bow was hurled at his head, and he must duck, and in the same moment Brian dragged out his sword and a dagger. Now he crouched, the knife forward, the sword held back for a swift riposte. Baldwin had no second weapon, and he paced forward slowly, warily watching Brian’s eyes, aware of the entire man, not only one hand or weapon, but the complete fighter. He saw a certain tension in Brian’s calves, and took a quick breath. Then Brian launched his attack.

He was good. His sword whirled high, and his dagger was almost an invisible blur underneath, the blow shielded and hidden by the greater threat of the sword, and Baldwin must retreat, blocking both with speed, only to see that both were only the first part of an attack. Now the dagger slid sideways as if to eviscerate Baldwin, and as he countered that, he realised that the sword was slicing towards his throat. He parried, then tried to regain the initiative by turning his blade and thrusting forward, but before he could complete the movement, he saw the dagger moving in once more. He sucked in his breath, curved his body away from the glistening, grey metal, and felt it slash at his belly, the pain nonexistent, the only sensation that of a faint dragging of skin with a dullness afterwards.

He would need another new tunic, he thought to himself inconsequentially, and then had to duck as Brian’s sword whirled past his skull. The dagger was there again, under his eyes, and he must move back again.

And then he saw it. Brian was confident of his victory. Baldwin must seem so old, so slow, Brian knew he could kill him. The blades flashed again and Baldwin gave way again, giving the impression of feebleness, watching carefully. Yes, there it was again: the shift of balance and quick change of foot. It was very quick, very assured, but it was a weakness.

The sword darted at his belly, the dagger behind and above, so that it could stab behind the false threat of the sword, but then he moved his feet just before lunging, and Baldwin had him. He grabbed Brian’s sword hand with his left, pushed, crouched, and kicked as hard as he could on Brian’s knee. There was a satisfying crunch, a high scream of pain, and Brian fell.

Baldwin stood over him, kicked him in the belly as he tried to stand, and then stabbed down once with his sword.

‘That is for Coroner Roger!’

The next morning was bright and clean, as though nothing foul or unpleasant could exist beneath the clear blue sky. When Simon rose, he could see not a single cloud to mar the perfection. The view was delightful, all the more so because he felt, if a little stiff, at least unmarked.

Hugh was at the trough in the courtyard when Simon left the inn, morosely washing a linen shirt. ‘Look at this! Torn, and the blood is all over it. I’ll never get it clean.’

‘Is that yours, Hugh? I didn’t think you were hurt,’ Simon said with some alarm. He had shown his man no sympathy after the fighting. His attention had been concentrated on Baldwin, who was bleeding slowly from a long scratch in his belly.

‘No, it’s not the shirt I was wearing yesterday,’ Hugh said glumly. ‘It’s much better than that, it’s the one the gatekeeper was wearing. He won’t need it again.’

‘No,’ Simon said distastefully. There was an old tradition of taking a dead man’s clothes. It was perfectly in order, but Simon would have hated to feel the shirt of a dead man against his own flesh. ‘Have you seen anyone else yet?’

‘No. Think they’re all still drunk,’ Hugh said censoriously. ‘Not good to drink so much after something like that.’

It was true. The men had all sunk to the ground in exhaustion after the battle. None of Brian’s men were left alive to trouble the area, and the attacking force was utterly spent from danger, from terror and from exertion. It was a long while before Baldwin could command them to begin to haul all the bodies into the yard. One pile was formed of Brian and his men, the other of the men who had helped destroy them, and when all was done, Simon himself had gone to the church next door, and asked the priest to come and attend to the dying as well as the dead. He had been reluctant, apparently convinced that a band of marauding outlaws had descended upon his vill and intended making off with all his silver.

In the end, Simon gave up and sent for Roger Scut. In minutes the rotund figure appeared. He had been locked in the room in the gatehouse, and now he gazed along the length of his nose like a prelate who was trying to elevate his nostrils above the stench of the common folk, but then he saw the dead bodies and crossed himself. He then earned Simon’s undying respect by demanding to know where the wounded were, and before anything else he went to them, attempting, as best he could in his clumsy manner, to ease their pain.

They hadn’t been able to bury anyone. That would be the responsibility of the vill’s folk later, but Baldwin had been very insistent that Coroner Roger’s body should be taken away from the place. It was brought to the inn, and lay in a cool storeroom even now. Baldwin had taken on the role of Coroner, and recorded the details of the action with the help of Roger’s own clerk. There had been much else to clear and mend, and it had taken some time to track down the vill’s peasants and organise them into labour squads, removing the bodies from the yard when Roger Scut told them that they could.

Simon stretched. His left shoulder was painful where someone had clubbed him and his foot was intensely painful where he had strained the tendons, but bearing in mind how close he had come to being stabbed or shot, he felt he had escaped lightly.

‘Hugh…’

‘Sir?’

‘When we get home, remind me to give you five marks.’

‘Five?’ Hugh stared with his face quite blank for a moment. Then he sniffed, glanced up at the sun, and returned to his scrubbing. ‘That’s good. I can buy my wife a shirt.’

More than just a damned shirt, Simon thought. Five marks was probably more money than he had ever before possessed. ‘And Hugh, if you don’t want to come to Dartmouth, I’ll understand. You can stay at Lydford and look after things there.’

‘You mean that?’

‘I wouldn’t have said so otherwise,’ Simon said heavily. It would be a hard parting. Hugh had saved Simon from harm on several occasions, and although he was undoubtedly the surliest bugger of a servant whom Simon had ever met, he was still a companion of many years, and losing him would be a wrench.

He turned on his heel to walk away, but stopped when he heard the quiet reply.

‘Sir? Thank you, sir. My wife, she’ll be pleased.’

Later in the morning, Baldwin made his way back to the castle. From the very beginning he had thought it a tinderbox of petit treason and mutiny, but the knowledge that he had been proved correct gave him no satisfaction.

At the gate, he saw Sampson and Surval. The fool was fearful, gazing about him with wide, scared eyes, but Surval met Baldwin’s eyes with a steady gaze. ‘I heard that the Coroner died yesterday. Is that right?’

‘I am sorry to say that yes, it is.’

‘You sound as though you mean that, Sir Knight.’

‘I do. He was a good man and a good friend.’

‘Rare to hear someone say that about a Coroner.’

‘Roger was a rare man.’

Surval nodded thoughtfully. ‘Sir Baldwin, I have a mind to help you.’

‘That would be kind. How, though?’

‘You were seeking the body of Wylkyn. We can tell you where it is.’

‘That is curious. I found his body out on the moors, lying under a pile of rocks near a lime pit – is that what you were going to tell me?’

‘Yes.’ Surval frowned. ‘You found Wylkyn yourself?’

‘It was not difficult,’ Baldwin said. ‘Especially when I saw that there was a lime pit not far away. I think Esmon killed Wylkyn, and later decided to have the evidence of his murder removed. If it were not for the mutiny here, I should have sent for the body before now.’

‘Why should he do that – hide the body there?’

‘I believe he had convinced himself that he was justified in executing Wylkyn, because the fellow had murdered his own master, Sir Richard Prouse. That sort of killing, to a man like Esmon, would be intolerable. He thought an attack on one knight was the same as an attack on the whole class of knights. So he killed Wylkyn – and left the body where it lay. It was carrion, not to be given the dignity of a burial.’

‘But then he had it moved?’

‘Yes. He must have realised that the discovery of a corpse could be at best an embarrassment to him. So he had a change of mind and arranged to have it destroyed. No doubt he ordered that the body should be taken to the lime pit and disposed of.’

‘You think so?’ The hermit began to look edgy.

‘I do not come to accuse,’ Baldwin told him. ‘The body was carried to the pit, but then it was taken away again, by two men. It was put in a field and covered in stones to protect it from wild animals. And I shall tell you this: the men who took Wylkyn there not only buried him with compassion and generosity, they also sought to protect his soul. They crossed his arms over his breast, then placed a cross on them, and I expect they prayed for him.’

‘How would you reckon all this?’

‘I followed their trail. It was easy to follow them to the pit. Then they picked a resting-place that was not far away. I soon found him.’

‘But the praying?’

‘Someone had been there on the morning I visited. There was the shape of a man lying with his arms outstretched, Surval, in the dampness of the grass. And you pray on your belly like a saint of old.’

‘That is not proof.’

‘Did I say it was?’

‘Perhaps they didn’t believe in Wylkyn’s guilt.’

‘No,’ Baldwin said pensively. ‘Perhaps they didn’t. And then again, there are still the questions about the death of Mary. It was obviously not Mark. Who else could have wanted to kill her?’

Surval looked at him from under beetling brows. He gave a short sigh. ‘I want to help you, Sir Knight. I believe you are a good man, especially after hearing your words about Wylkyn’s body. I was near the road myself that day.’

‘You saw what happened?’ Baldwin said sharply.

‘Some of it. I saw Mark argue and then snap. He punched Mary on the shoulder, although not hard enough to hurt her, I’d have thought.’

‘Why didn’t you tell of this before?’ Baldwin asked suspiciously.

‘Many have heard of my offence, Sir Baldwin. Would it be safe for me to expose myself to suspicion by revealing to superstitious villeins that I was there? Once a murderer, always a murderer! No, I thought it better to hold my tongue.’

‘Even though Mark could have been executed?’ Baldwin demanded.

‘He was in no danger of that, Sir Baldwin, was he? He was a cleric – but me? No one believes a hermit is genuine. We are all supposed to be fraudsters, lazy vagabonds who have found an easy station.’

‘There was every danger!’ Baldwin snapped. ‘He was accused of being a false monk!’

‘I didn’t know,’ Surval objected. ‘Not then. If I had, I would have protected him. I would have told all I knew.’

Baldwin doubted that. Surval had not bothered to go to the court held in the castle, when Mark was accused, but then, he would have assumed that even after a murder, Mark would be protected by his cloth. It was logical. And Surval was speaking sense. His own risk was greater than Mark’s.

‘So what did you see?’

‘The whole thing,’ Surval said simply. ‘I saw Mark strike her, but not cruelly, not too hard. It wasn’t like when I hit my woman. That was malicious. My God! I was so evil! How could I have done that to someone I loved?’

‘Mark: he hit her?’

‘Yes. I saw it. The moment he’d done so, he raised his hands to his face in shame. Mary said nothing, just stared at him in shock. He must have felt awful, because he turned away and started weeping silently, and retching as if he was going to be sick, but instead, he simply ran from the place.’

‘And she was all right?’

‘Yes. Perfectly all right. She looked upset, but she wasn’t in pain or anything. A short time later, Sir Ralph appeared. I had been going to her side, but when I heard his horse, I stopped. He and I did not like each other. He spoke to her, and asked her how she fared. She was fine then. He left a little while later. Then I saw her put her hand on her belly, like any young mother, except there was a look of concern on her face. And she had grown pale, a little odd-looking – as if she felt giddy.’

‘What then?’

‘I cleared off. I was not of a mood to stand there watching her. I heard a noise, and when I investigated, I found Sampson. He had seen the argument and left just after Mark himself.’

‘So Sampson could not have killed her? You saw her alive and then saw him leaving the place?’

‘She was alive when Sampson left,’ Surval said with certainty.

‘Did you see anyone else?’

‘No. When I left, I could hear the plough still moving. That was all. I didn’t see anyone else.’

‘Why did you keep this secret until now, then? There is little in this to help us, and little enough to do you harm!’ Baldwin exclaimed. ‘This whole matter is ridiculous! Why does no one try to help find the girl’s killer?’

‘Because it hurts any vill to accept that a man within it could do such a wicked thing.’

There was a curious tone in the hermit’s voice. ‘What do you mean?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Do you have any idea who could have done this?’

‘I know Elias was in the field with Ben. I also know that no one else passed along the lane after Sir Ralph,’ Surval said. ‘Later, I saw Ben running down the roadway to get help. Elias remained.’

‘So?’

‘What if that little slap, the shock of his hand upon her – and, who knows, perhaps the thought that she had lost him? – made poor Mary lose her child? Perhaps she fell to the ground, whimpering and weeping, and Elias found her like that.’

‘What if he did?’

‘A young girl lying on the ground, the soil about her covered in her blood. It would look as though she had been attacked.’

‘Which is surely what Elias thought,’ Baldwin agreed.

‘Elias feels strongly that women should not be molested. He lost his own daughter because she was raped. She died slowly, because she had been kicked in the belly. Wouldn’t he think it kinder to kill her swiftly?’

Baldwin recalled seeing Elias with rabbits, how he stroked them to calm them before speedily breaking their necks. ‘So one could say that Mark did, in fact, kill her. If he hadn’t hit her and made her collapse, she might still be alive.’

‘And this terrible tale might have a different ending.’

‘You do not feel that Wylkyn killed his master?’

‘No. He would never have harmed Sir Richard. His whole endeavour was to help the poor man with his possets and potions.’

‘Then…’

‘I think Mark was keen to assist his father.’

‘Sweet Jesus! You mean this?’

‘I was there in the room. Mark was present for much of the time. Anyone could have gone into Wylkyn’s room to fetch powders or leaves, Mark the same as anyone. He knew his father was Sir Ralph, and he sought to further my brother’s interests. Perhaps he intended to tell Ralph what he had done, and try to claim benefits of some sort. Maybe seek patronage.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘There is little a man like Mark would not do to improve his prospects, Sir Baldwin. I know that someone like you is immune to the lust of better offices, but for a political monk, what else is there? Especially when he is left in a backwater like this. What is more natural than that he should dream of halls of his own, of power and influence?’

‘So Esmon wrongly assumed that Wylkyn must have murdered Sir Richard, and sought to avenge the crime.’

‘Exactly.’

‘A terrible mess.’

‘Life often is, Sir Baldwin.’

‘True, my friend.’

‘You seem to feel the misery of other people, good sir.’

‘There are times,’ Baldwin said quietly, ‘when I feel that I carry the weight of too many men’s sins and grief on my shoulders.’