Chapter Four

Hugh brought the axe down one last time, wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and set the axe by the side of his pile of wood. Gazing about him, he grinned as he told himself that he had never been so happy as since he started to live with Constance.

This old tree had collapsed during the year before last, when he’d first come here. Over time the other larger boughs had been cut out, but this one had, for some reason, survived. And then a foul storm had struck and it had collapsed, taking a lot of the old Devon hedge with it.

It was a problem with older parcels of land in this area. The little holding where Hugh and Constance lived was once part of the Priory of Belstone’s demesne, but when Constance had been sent here by the prioress it had been empty for some years. The hovel which had stood here had been all but derelict, and when Hugh first saw it his temper had if anything grown more sour.

‘Best work on that first,’ he had declared, and stood staring at it while Constance gazed at him anxiously. She had been anxious a lot of the time back then, he remembered. About her baby, about her life, whether she had made the right choices, whether she should be here at Iddesleigh at all … there were so many concerns for a young woman with no vocation.

What else could a moorman do, though? Hugh knew that a place like this needed a man to look after it, just as a woman needed a man to provide for her. It was all well and good to say to a woman like Constance, ‘Woman, there’s a place at Iddesleigh. There’s a house and some acres. Go and take it. You can live there,’ as though that was an end to the matter. But no one who’d ever farmed would think that. No, as Hugh knew, a farm which was left fallow for any length of time would soon be overwhelmed with weeds and brambles, the coppices overrun with small, useless stems, and the house … well, it would look as this one had.

Constance was lucky the prioress had given her anything, of course. It was proof of the regard in which she was held by the prioress — but God’s ballocks, it was fortunate that Hugh had been here to see to it.

The scowl on his face lightened a moment. Being born on the moors lent a man a suspicious nature, and for a moment Hugh wondered whether that could have been at the heart of the prioress’s suggestion that Hugh should travel here with Constance … the old woman was certainly crafty enough to see that this servant was already attracted to the former novice. Only it was more than that. Hugh felt the same adoration for Constance that a sheepdog feels for its master. There was no denying it: he loved her. She was … well, there weren’t words for her.

He’d even given up his master, Simon Puttock, and his family for Constance. Perhaps if he hadn’t met her, he’d still be in service with Simon, living with him at Dartmouth. When Master Simon had been given that post — the Abbot Robert’s representative in the town with full authority under the Abbey of Tavistock’s seal — Hugh had known so many doubts, it had felt as though his heart was being torn in two; but there was no choice as far as he was concerned, not really. He’d seen Constance’s new home by then, and although he’d rebuilt the worst of the hovel, there was too much to be done on the land about it for him to leave her alone yet. Simon, who knew him so well, had given him a small purse and wished him Godspeed when they last parted. There was no pointed comment, no demand that he ought to continue to serve his master as he had before, no bitterness: only a wholehearted and generous wish for his happiness.

Hugh could remember that last meeting.

‘Hugh, make her happy — and I will pray that God makes you as content with her as I always have been with my darling Meg. Constance is a good woman, and she deserves a man who’ll honour her, so look to her, protect her, and you can always send a messenger to me if you are in want. Remember that!’

And with that, Hugh could remember the glistening at his master’s eyes. Simon had actually wept at losing Hugh’s company. It made Hugh feel terrible, but there was no choice. Not really. Hugh hefted the axe again and let its weight draw it down into a long branch.

No, Master Simon could always find a new servant. He’d said that he had one already — a lad called Rob — who was efficient and ever cheerful. That was what Master Simon had said: the lad was always cheerful. It was a daft comment. Hugh had always been cheerful enough, God’s blood! He normally greeted his master with a respectful duck of the head of a morning. He scowled, remembering: what more could anyone ask?

He swung the axe again, glancing up at the sky. It was darkening in the way that it did in the late winter, deepening to blue overhead with pink in the west. Looking at the remaining trunk, he sniffed, then slung the axe over his shoulder. There would be time enough tomorrow to finish the job, and then it would be a matter of carrying all the logs back to the house. He had a small hurdle which he’d made from the smaller branches, and he reckoned he could lash the logs to that, and hitch it to an ox. The beast would drag the lot back home.

Mulling over his plans for the next day, he wandered slowly through the gathering gloom to the house. Soon he could smell the fire, and he snuffed the air happily. It was good to know that he was nearly home. The mere idea of ‘home’ was enough to make him smile. When he’d been a youngster he’d had a home, of course, but then he’d become a shepherd, and that lonely life had marked him profoundly.

His path took him over the line of the hill, along the lane westwards, and thence down to the cottage. He stopped once, gazing along the sweep of hills to the south to where, in the distance, he could see his old haunt: Dartmoor, sitting like a brooding animal preparing to pounce on the far horizon, dark and dangerous. Sometimes he liked to think of himself like that: a man of action who rested at present, but only like a moor viper, coiled, alert and ready to attack.

Tonight all he wanted was a quiet evening, and then his bed. The house looked shabby and in need of a fresh coat of limewash and a new roof, but he stood still and smiled at the sight of it. It was all he had ever wanted. A good, solid house, when all was said and done, with space for the animals at the bottom of the slope so that their filth would drain through the hole in the wall, while he and his woman and child slept in the northernmost portion, up the hill. It was a sight to warm an old shepherd’s heart.

Sighing happily, he strode into the yard, and had gone six paces when he realised that something was wrong; terribly wrong.

There was a smell of burning pitch, and he had none here at the farm. He could smell the fumes as though they were very close, and it was a few moments before he realised that the odour came from a torch, and that the breeze was behind him.

A warning flashed in his mind, and he began to turn, but he was already too late. There was a shout, a command, he heard a whirling like a nearby flight of geese, and his head was slammed forward as something smashed against his skull.

He could feel sparks strike at his skull, and as his cheek crashed against the dirt of the yard he smelled the stench of burning hair, rank and disgusting. A second blow, then a third, and his head was a mass of pain. There were cries, but they seemed to come from afar, perhaps on the next hill? In front of him he could see the house, and he knew that if he could reach it, all would be well. He would be safe in there. Constance would come to him and make his head better. He knew that.

There was no strength in his arms or legs. It was only a short distance, made hazy by the smoke and the roaring in his ears. He lifted his head, and he heard a man cry out. A boot kicked his temple, and then his chest, and he lay wide-eyed and unblinking, utterly spent.

He could see the open doorway. At the threshold lay his woman. He saw a man drop to his knees in front of her. There was a muted cry, a sound of grief and terror, and he saw the man finish, rise, kick, spit, laugh, draw a dagger, reach down. All was a whirl. Hugh was sure he ought to do something, but his limbs were another man’s, not his. There was nothing his mind could do to command his body.

A boot thudded into his flank and he rolled to his belly, hiding from the blows. A foot rested on his back. He heard a shout, a scream, saw the babe, Hugh, held by the legs. Mercifully, his eyes closed, and he heard a roar of laughter, then no more screams from Hugh. A punch in his back, another, and this time he felt an odd sensation. It was as though the punch had gone through his back and scraped a rib.

Hugh could smell smoke, and he felt warmed. He had left the field to come home, and he must have fallen asleep as soon as he got here. The fire was lighted: he could feel the hot breath at his face. It glowed at his eyelids, and he snuggled further down into his bed. It was a lovely bed, soft and yielding, and surely Constance would soon be here with him, her soft body joining with his.

It was a dream. She was a dream to him, and he smiled in what he thought must be his sleep as he felt himself sliding away, as though he was slipping sideways into the darkness of the soil itself as unconsciousness enfolded him.

Friar John was footsore, irritable, and not in the mood for another night out in the cold. He’d already covered too many miles since he’d fallen out with the prior in Exeter, and here he was still wandering about the countryside wondering whether he had made the right decision in leaving Exeter when he had, let alone in coming this way. It had smacked a little of hypocrisy to fly from the city in such a hurry, without taking time to consider.

Still, he had caught his prior in a lie, and one which could lead to others being harmed, if not killed. No, he hadn’t had a choice at the time. It was a shame, though. He’d enjoyed a good reputation there in Exeter. All who met him reckoned that he was the best fund-raiser the Order had seen.

A shod friar, a Dominican, John was one of those who had given up all his worldly wealth … not that he had possessed much when he’d first walked to the friary and offered himself. Then he’d been a narrow-shouldered, skinny, rather feeble assistant to a cutler, who had hoped to earn a place as a man of importance in his adopted city of Winchester.

He had had so little good fortune in his life, he thought now. He was the third son of Sir George, a minor knight from the Welsh marches, and knowing he would make a dreadful priest he had early on chosen a life of trade and gone to Winchester. There, when he grew older, he had encountered some of the pitfalls which awaited so many young apprentices in life: a night’s debauchery, cross words with his master, an evening frolicking with a maid in a tavern of low reputation, more cross words with his master, and then a blazing row when the maid was discovered in his narrow cot a couple of days later.

Suddenly he was an outcast, adrift in the great city, taking a succession of little jobs that paid him swiftly so that he had something to take and spend in a tavern. The maid disappeared: he had heard that she had later eloped with his master’s own son.

During that lonely period he had learned all about the pleasures of life, and almost as speedily discarded them as worthless. Women he could enjoy, ale and wine would delight, but all were sour in the mouth the next morning. Especially the women who demanded money as he tried to leave their chambers. None seemed to remember that they’d wanted him the night before as much as he’d told himself he wanted them. Or, to be more truthful, and John tried always to be truthful, perhaps it was the ale and wine which told him that they seemed to desire him.

Whatever the truth of it, after a year of splendid excess, he had nothing. There was no job, all the women knew he had nothing to give them, and while he had a need for wine in the morning, there was no means to pay for it. And one morning, while resting his back against a merchant’s house, hoping for alms, he saw a friar. The man was dressed in a grubby robe like his own, without sandals on his feet, and held only a bowl, which he proffered optimistically whenever he caught someone’s eye.

‘Good day, master,’ he said to John. It was the first kindly greeting John had heard in many a long day. When the friar shuffled off, John found himself trailing in his wake.

It was in the priory that he discovered his true vocation: not to wander about the countryside begging for himself, but to earn alms for the good of all. And he was good, very good. In a city John could bring the money from every man’s purse, it seemed, almost with a whistle. In a world in which most friars were educated men, with serious expressions and the look of fellows who should have been rather above this position in life, but were prepared to suffer a little now for their advancement later, like a squire who is first taught how to clear out the stable in the hope that one day he’ll understand enough to be a knight.

John, though — he was different, and he knew it. Most Dominicans were keen to amass their alms as quickly as possible, then buy some bread and go and preach, find a place to rest the night, and prepare for the next day’s begging and preaching. Not John. He had always been a sharp lad, quick with a flattering word, and when he stood by and listened to some of his colleagues preach it made him want to wince. There was no passion, no fire. All they could manage was an injunction to remember the friars (among others) in their prayers, with maybe a hopeful wave of their bowls afterwards.

No good, Christ in Heaven, no! Christ wanted to save souls, and looking amiably foolish with a bowl in your hand might win a hunk of bread and some pottage of an evening, but it wasn’t going to maintain a single ecclesiastical establishment. So John had set out to win over richer men without issue: the lonely and sad, the bereaved and desperate, promising them preferential honours in the afterlife, provided that they gave over their wealth to the friary in the here and now.

Of course it had worked. It had been so successful that in Exeter, where he had ended up, he had caused a certain amount of friction between the friary and the cathedral. Still, that was all in his past now. He had left when he saw some of the corruption of the city, and he was well out of it.

It had been shortly after he had joined the priory that he had heard from his mother that his older brothers were both dead, killed in the wars that ran up and down the marches at all times. The Welsh were a froward, cunning foe, and his brothers had been tricked into a narrow valley by the offer of treasure before being slaughtered by Welsh arrows. Ach, the Welsh were ever cowards. They wouldn’t stand and fight.

By then, it was too late to tempt him home. His life had the purpose it had lacked before, and he was content. The manor would go to his remaining sibling, a sister. At least the estates would make for a good dowry when she was married.

His reflections were cut short by a pebble. He was wearing boots which a kind donor had given him, but the thin leather was little protection against the ragged stones. The soles of his feet were cracked and throbbing, and every so often he would stub a toe on a lump of moorstone or semi-frozen mud, which would give him a stab of exquisite pain.

It was as he leaned on his old staff with his face twisted, having managed to do this yet again and stemming the tide of curses only with an effort of will, that he saw the light up ahead.

There were many places out here where a man should be cautious, but even the most devil-may-care felon would think twice before harming a friar. In the first place a friar was useful because he might take a man’s confession and shrive him; in the second, he had no possessions. There was no point in trying to rob him.

Still, thieves were not the only threat to a man in the darkness. A law-abiding farmer could be as dangerous if he thought that a dark figure in the shadows was possibly a man come to ravish a wife or daughter. Many out in assarts miles from any neighbours would strike first and ask questions later if practicable. John had little desire to court any more grief than he already endured, so he peered ahead, his narrow face screwed into an expression of intense concentration, while his sharp eyes gazed from under his beetling brows. There were no signs of dancing shapes, no screaming or shouting thieves, only a warm glow amidst the trees, and overhead, now he glanced upwards, a thick pall of black smoke. Occasionally a shower of glinting sparks would rise in a rush, only to disappear.

John gripped his staff and started to make his way towards the blaze. The hour was late for a fire in the woods. People tended to douse the flames so that the trees were protected from stray sparks. Even now, when winter had not yet given way to spring, there was still the threat of wholesale conflagration if men were careless, and men were rarely careless.

It was a good half-mile to the fire, and he had plenty of opportunity to survey the area on his way.

He had come from Upcott towards a place he was told was called Whitemoor, in the hope that the tavern at Iddesleigh might offer him a space on the floor for the night. The fire appeared to be close to the vill itself, set away from the path by a short distance, and he approached it slowly and reluctantly, his staff tapping on the ground firmly with every step he took, until he reached the burning buildings and saw the bodies lying all about: chickens, a dog, cats, and then, last of all, the body of a man.

‘Sweet Mother of Christ,’ he breathed.