A Friar's bloodfeud

Chapter Thirty

Hugh sat back on his heels. ‘Want to know what you meant.’

‘I can’t even remember seeing you there.’

He didn’t believe the man. ‘I was hedging. You told me to look after her. That night, she died.’

Humphrey’s face suddenly paled. ‘Pater Noster, Domine …’

‘You can say one thing for him,’ John said idly, lifting a rabbit leg and dropping it into the pot with the others. ‘He’s certainly had training. He knows all the right words.’

‘Of course I do,’ Humphrey spat. ‘What do you think I am? An impostor?’

His bluster didn’t upset John. ‘Yes.’

Humphrey gaped. His work had been faultless, surely. It was impossible that anyone could have spotted his deceit.

‘You see,’ John said, ‘your error was in assuming that all parish priests are dullards. They aren’t. In particular, Matthew at Iddesleigh is a very good and conscientious priest. He knows his Latin, he serves his flock as well as he might, he works his lands alongside the peasants, and he knows the church and the politics of the bishop’s court. Perhaps if you had known more about that, he wouldn’t have noticed you. But you didn’t, so he did.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You knew too much, but your Latin was very rusty. It still is, I think. You can recite it, but it’s not your strength. Your congregation wouldn’t notice the difference. Tell me, did Isaac?’

‘This is nonsense!’

‘Perhaps he did and didn’t want to embarrass you. I have no doubt he would have prayed hard for your miserable, devious, lying soul. But there we are. It was as plain as the buckle on your belt there that you weren’t trained for the priesthood. No, I agreed with Matthew as soon as I saw you.’

‘Agreed with what?’

‘That you were a friar or a monk. And you’ve run away.’

Simon watched Sir Odo mount his horse. ‘Thank God we’ve met him,’ he said. ‘At least we know we have a strong ally.’

Baldwin nodded, but his mind was not entirely with Simon. The bailiff recognised the look in his eyes. It was that slight distraction that meant that Baldwin was already beginning to see through the immediate problems to the core of the matter.

‘Well, Baldwin?’ he asked.

Baldwin knew his friend well enough now not to mind when he broke in upon his thoughts. ‘Sir Odo is clearly anxious about Sir Geoffrey, and from what we’ve seen, so should he be.’

‘It was a stroke of good fortune for us that he is,’ Edgar commented.

Simon glanced at him. ‘Because his men were there in good time?’

Edgar nodded. His face was set to the south and west. ‘That’s the way he came, wasn’t it? I wonder where the messenger was stationed. The lad must have been a fleet rider to be able to get to Sir Odo and rouse him in time for Odo to ride out to his man’s lands before coming here. We were not so slow ourselves in riding here from the chapel, were we?’

‘He probably knows all the short cuts,’ Simon said. Then a thought struck him. ‘That may be how the men who attacked Hugh got to him, too, by using some quieter paths that didn’t pass near the road.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘Except the horses did come from Iddesleigh itself. I saw that in their hoofprints. They must have gone to Hugh’s house under cover of the party at the inn, and then come back here quietly and ridden home when all was dark.’

‘An easy ride,’ Edgar agreed. A fast ride in the dark over rough land was never appealing to a horseman. A good, solid roadway like this was safe.

‘Sir Odo’s men are all about the church,’ Simon noted. ‘Even if Sir Geoffrey returns, I don’t think he’ll be able to break in there without raising the vill.’

‘It would be a foolish man who’d try that,’ Baldwin said. But even as he spoke, his eyes went to the church.

Seeing his look, Edgar gave a contented smile. ‘There is one sure and certain protection if you are fearful, Sir Baldwin. Send Madam Jeanne’s maid to guard the man. Not only would you guarantee that Sir Geoffrey would never dare attack, you would also ensure that the man would speak to you of anything you wanted as soon as you returned to see him.’

‘Thank you,’ Baldwin said coldly. ‘If I were to take your advice, our only witness would be dead by morning if he had to gnaw through his own wrists to manage it, so cruel is the punishment you suggest.’

It was already late when Adcock appeared in the chapel’s doorway. As the door opened, all the candles began to dance and smoke. He shot a look around, and pushed the door quietly shut behind him.

This place was proving to be a hell on earth. All Adcock had ever wanted was to be left to arrange for the good management of the land and the animals on it, but instead here he was, installed in a manor which was a hotbed of thieving and banditry. The serfs avoided him, seeing him as a henchman of the Despenser. None of them pretended to be an expert of politics at anything higher than the most local level, but all of them knew of the reputation that the Lord Despenser was earning. They had heard how he extorted and tortured people in order to enrich himself.

Adcock walked painfully to the earthenware stoup at the wall and crossed himself, then slowly made his way up the nave to the altar.

‘What is it, Sergeant? Couldn’t sleep?’

‘Perkin? What are you doing here?’

‘Watching over old Isaac. He deserved a mourner, if only one.’

‘He would have understood. There’s a lot of work on at this time of year.’

Perkin yawned. ‘When is that not true?’

Tentatively Adcock approached the body and Perkin, who squatted near the head. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

‘Why would you want to? You hardly knew the man.’

‘He was a good man, though. We both know that. He served this vill well in his time, and it seems wrong to me that there is no official party here to watch over him as he lies in his own chapel.’

‘That young priest should be here with him,’ Perkin said bitterly.

‘This will be a terrible shock to him, I expect,’ Adcock said.

‘You think so?’

Shocked by his tone, Adcock looked up sharply. ‘You mean the priest had something to do with this man’s death?’

‘He was old. He had nothing more to live for, I believe. He’d done all he could.’

Adcock grimaced and shifted uneasily. His cods still felt as though they’d been broken. ‘What is happening here? I hoped for a period of quiet to get the land sown so that we could win the best harvest ever — and all I have found is death and despair.’

‘It’s a hard life, and this is a hard vill,’ Perkin said. ‘But you’ll be all right.’

Adcock had a sudden vision of his Hilda, the sun was behind her so he could see her whole form, the smile on her face still brighter than the sun itself … and he knew that he would never dare to bring her here to this manor. Better that they should live apart than that she should come and be leered at by the men under Sir Geoffrey. They were little more than brutes, all of them.

‘Nicholas le Poter was all but killed by Sir Geoffrey,’ he said. ‘Whipped just because he took the piss out of a messenger from Sir Odo.’

Perkin looked at him. ‘He was no friend to us who live here. If Sir Geoffrey took the skin off his back, not many of us would care.’

‘You didn’t see what happened to him,’ Adcock said, thinking again of that terrible kick that had all but emasculated Adcock himself. In reality that was a part of the reason for his being here: to be safe from any further attack from Sir Geoffrey. The other part was despair. He had sealed Nicholas le Poter’s death warrant when he told Sir Geoffrey that le Poter had suggested the draining of the mire, and the knowledge was destroying him.

‘I’ve seen what’s happened to others often enough,’ Perkin grunted.

‘Where is the young priest? He should be here too.’

‘He’s run away.’ Perkin looked at him and sighed. ‘The damned fool. It’s going to cost him his neck.’

Jeanne was already asleep when Baldwin walked into his room. Simon and Edgar were still in the inn’s main hall, drinking without speaking for the most part, although now and again Edgar would murmur a word or two about life at Crediton.

Emma was, thankfully, nowhere to be seen. Baldwin gave a quick frown, wondering where she could have got to. He hadn’t seen her since Sir Odo had left, when he was sure she had been at the bar, talking and joking with a small clique of drinkers. One man had stood glowering at Baldwin — oh yes, David, the man who had led them to the mire where Lady Lucy had been found. He had some reason for disliking Baldwin and Simon, he supposed.

Emma would probably annoy someone else through the night with her snoring or her moaning and complaining. Baldwin could hope so, anyway. Certainly he would sleep all the better without her in the room … urged on by the temptations of the devil, he began to move a chest across the doorway to prevent her entering. Only the sudden change in Jeanne’s breathing stopped him. He realised that he might wake her now by dragging the chest, and if he didn’t, the blasted maid certainly would when she found the door barred against her. She’d be likely to pound on it and wake the entire house. Finally, as he was removing his sword and tunic, Baldwin started to chuckle to himself. In his haste to ban Emma, he hadn’t noticed that the door opened outwards. Pulling the chest before it would achieve nothing.

It was a sign of how tired he was, he told himself as he sank onto the bed as gently as possible so as not to waken Jeanne.

His wound was giving him some grief again. That damned bolt from behind had so nearly killed him, it seemed perverse now to complain about the pain, yet he could not help himself. It was a constant grumbling ache at the best of times. Now, with his whole body exhausted after the ride here and the efforts he had expended since arriving, it was more of a pernicious anguish.

The thought that they were likely never to bring a murderer to book for the crimes committed against Hugh was a sore grief. Yet Baldwin was not sure that there was any possibility of seeing justice brought to bear against the Despenser’s man down here. And he was growing to agree with all those with whom he had spoken that surely it was Sir Geoffrey who had the urge to remove Hugh, who had the opportunity, and who had been about the place that day. As for his allegation that another could have killed Lady Lucy and dropped her body in the mire — Baldwin was in two minds. It was unlikely that a man would have dropped the body in the mire to throw suspicion on Sir Geoffrey unless he knew that the mire was soon to be drained. Who could have known that in advance? Clearly the sergeant of the manor would have known. Perhaps Baldwin should speak to him. Then again, would Sir Geoffrey have allowed the mire to be emptied if he knew that the lady’s body lay within?

As he lay back, the questions circled in his mind, but he could get no nearer an answer. All he was growing convinced of was that Sir Geoffrey would be enormously difficult to bring to justice.

Baldwin wondered how Simon would cope with that. It was a dreadful conclusion to reach, but if the culprit was Sir Geoffrey, the man was practically unassailable. Lord Despenser would protect his own.

It was a deeply unsatisfying conclusion, but he could see no alternative. He only prayed that Simon would not be irrational. He would speak to Edgar in the morning. If it looked as though Simon was going to burst out into righteous indignation and assault Sir Geoffrey, Edgar and he would have to prevent him by force.

There was no point having Simon getting himself killed as well.

Humphrey eyed the glowing tip of the blackened stick in Hugh’s hand. It approached him with the relentlessness of a viper slowly stalking a mouse, and Humphrey felt like a mouse as he sat absolutely still, the warmth from the glowing point beginning to make him sweat.

‘I have no patience with liars,’ Hugh said quietly. ‘Speak.’

‘I know nothing! Nothing. But I saw Matthew the priest at Iddesleigh, and he told me that your wife was once a nun, that she had taken her vows when she was too young, and had fled here.’

‘So?’ Hugh demanded.

‘I am the same. I was a monk, from the little priory of Otterton.’

‘I know it,’ John said, nodding to himself as he stirred the pot. ‘A pleasant little place, but draughty rooms for guests.’

‘I was sent there when I was a lad. My father thought I was wayward and too clever for his household. My older brothers were to have the estate and the glory, and all I had was the Church. So I went to the priory and began my novitiate. I soon realised that it was a harsh, cruel life. I couldn’t live under the rules there. It was too much. But when I spoke to the prior, who was generally a decent old soul, he told me that I’d taken the vows and that was an end to it. So I ran away.’

‘And that was all?’ John asked.

‘It’s all I will say.’

Hugh took the stick away, studied the point, and then began to blow on it. ‘What of my wife? You warned me to look after her.’

‘All I meant was that the priest knew of her, knew of her secret. Good God, man, don’t you understand? I am a runaway too. If they drag me back, I’ll die! I couldn’t do that, not return. They’d humiliate me, make me lie on the threshold of the door to the church before each service, keep me locked in the gaol all the rest of the time, and only feed me on rank water and hard bread …’ He was weeping now. ‘Sweet Jesu, I saw one man they brought back. He looked as though he was near to death, and we were made to step on his poor body each time we entered and left the church. He lost his mind, man! Became no better than an animal!’

Hugh had blown the stick to a dull orange glow again. He nodded as though to himself, and approached Humphrey once more. ‘And that same night my woman was killed. You expect me to believe you?’

‘I know nothing more!’

‘What were you doing at Isaac’s chapel, then?’ John called cheerfully. ‘Was it a mere matter of good fortune that you happened upon his chapel?’

‘Yes. I met him in Hatherleigh at the market, and thought that to persuade a deaf and blind old man that I was a coadjutor sent to help him in his cure of the souls of the vill would be no difficult task. I was right. I could help him, and I did. There was so much to do, and I think I helped some of the people of the parish to find their way to God …’

John’s voice was light with amusement. ‘So you thought that you’d help him? And now you’ve run away.’

‘I’ve stolen nothing!’

‘True. So why bolt?’

Humphrey closed his eyes and shook his head. His hands were as cold as stone now, with the tight thongs binding them, and his head felt heavy. ‘I realised that the woman’s body was going to make my life difficult.’

‘Lady Lucy?’ John asked quietly. ‘The lady found in the mire?’

‘Yes. I went there to give her the viaticum, say some prayers for her, but then, when I saw her, I knew that there was no life for me here. As soon as the coroner found her dead, he’d be bound to start to make inquiries, and I would be uncovered.’

‘Isaac would protect you,’ John said with a frown.

‘Isaac is dead. I went out and when I went back he was still. Calm, tidy, but dead. He just stopped.’

‘So! You had no sponsor, no patron, and you thought you would be best occupied in escaping again?’

‘What else could I do? I know Matthew suspects me. I shouldn’t be surprised if he’s already sent to the bishop and demanded to know where I was sent from. He never trusted me.’

‘And yet you didn’t steal from the church. That speaks well of you,’ John said.

‘I’m no thief. I only ran because I had to.’

‘Why should the lady’s appearance lead to suspicion against you?’ John wondered.

‘Someone might remember me running from the convent.’

‘Yes,’ John agreed. ‘So you said.’

Hugh had thrust the stick in the fire and now it glowed white when he blew out the flames.

‘It’s the truth,’ Humphrey said more desperately, staring at it.

Hugh said nothing, but eyed his stick as he began to thrust it nearer Humphrey’s face.

It was enough. He couldn’t bear to look at it. Closing his eyes and averting his head, he screamed, ‘All right! I confess!’

John snapped, ‘What?’

‘On the Gospels, this is true! I killed a man at the convent. A brother monk. I didn’t mean to, but he was evil to me, he was foul and cruel, and I only meant to strike him … when he was on the ground I realised what I’d done. I had to run. If the coroner was to see me and understand that I had run away, news would soon get back to the bishop or the convent and I would be gaoled for my life. I couldn’t bear that, so I took myself off before the coroner arrived. I swear it! It’s the truth!’

Nothing happened. Neither of the other men said a word. Opening an eye Humphrey found himself looking up into Hugh’s scowling face.

Hugh contemplated him for a long moment, then touched the orange-glowing ember to a rushlight hanging over Humphrey’s head. It hissed and sparked as it took light, and every sound made Humphrey’s flesh creep.

‘Thought so,’ Hugh said.