Holy War

Chapter 13

October 1188: Harthill, England

John’s hood was pulled up in a vain attempt to keep out the rain, and he leaned heavily on his staff as he trudged into Harthill. It was a tiny village, almost indistinguishable from the dozens of others like it that he had trudged through in his trek north across England to Yorkshire. The street was unpaved, and his heavy wooden clogs sank into the mud with every step. He passed scattered wooden longhouses and sunken huts until he came to one with a tankard hanging over the door — the sign that ale was being served. Most villagers were brewers and turned their homes into impromptu taverns whenever a fresh batch was ready. John pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The room was dim, the ceiling and walls dark with smoke from a fire that guttered in the hearth on the far wall. John hung his cloak from a peg over the fire and leaned his staff on the wall. Two simple tables — boards set atop trestles — ran the length of the room. At the far end of one, two men sat across from one another. One gripped his tankard with strong calloused hands that were black under the nails. He had broad, muscled shoulders and a back bent by labour — probably at the whetstone quarry that John had passed on his way into the village. John did not like the look of the other man. He also gripped his tankard with thick fingers, but his nails were clean and his back was straight. He wore his cloak indoors. There was no reason to do so unless he was hiding something — armour, or perhaps a weapon. The men lowered their tankards and glared at John with undisguised hostility.

John had grown accustomed to rude welcomes. More than a year had passed since he left Jerusalem. He had marched to Tyre, but the city’s new ruler, Conrad of Montferrat, had refused to open the gates to the flood of pilgrims. He feared that if Tyre were besieged, it would run short of food as Jerusalem had. John and the other refugees were forced to continue north to Antioch. By the time they arrived, the sailing season was over and John had to wait until March. Refugees continued to pour into Antioch. They crowded the docks, forcing up the price of passage to Europe. John had to sell his cross, and even then he could only afford a passage to Venice. He did not have sufficient coin for a horse, so he had crossed Europe on foot. The rucksack with his vestments and prayer book had been stolen while he slept at a church in Turin. His leather breeches had held up well enough, but his tunic was ragged and his cloak so riddled with holes that it looked as if a thousand moths had made a meal of it. His boots had fallen to pieces as he crossed the Alps, and soon enough his feet were raw and blistered, leaving him leaning on his staff as he limped along at a snail’s pace. After seeing his tattered feet, the Benedictines in Lyon had been kind enough to provide him with a pair of clogs. The inside of the right one had cracked somewhere outside Paris when John stepped on a sharp rock. The crack opened and closed with every step, pinching his foot.

John had stayed in churches and monasteries along the route of his journey. At first, the abbots and archbishops had been delighted to welcome the archdeacon of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He had shared their tables and slept in well-appointed rooms. But as the road took its toll on his appearance so the welcomes cooled. By the time he had reached Bayeux, near the channel coast of France, he was lucky to find a place in the stables. In England, his appearance brought hostile looks wherever he went. Harthill it seemed, was no exception.

John ignored the men’s glares as he took a seat on the far side of the room. The tavern keeper entered from the back. He was a skinny man, all elbows and knees, with a bulging Adam’s apple. He scowled when he saw John and his hand moved to clutch something beneath his leather apron.

‘A tankard of small ale,’ John told him in English. The skinny man did not move. John held up a silver coin — his last — and the man muttered something as he went into the back. John looked about. Now that his eyes had adjusted, he noticed a third man in dark priest’s robes sitting in the far corner. He was a portly fellow, and his head was resting on the table while he snored softly, his tankard of ale still in hand. The village priest, no doubt.

The tavern keeper came back with a full tankard. John took a sip and childhood memories came flooding back. The ale was sweet, with a bitter aftertaste. There had been nothing like it in the East. ‘A good brew.’

The tavern keeper grunted. He was still standing by the table, his hand beneath his apron. ‘You speak queer. You’re no Frenchman, nor an Englishman neither.’

It was John’s turn to frown. ‘I have spent some years in the East. I come from the Holy Land.’

‘A pilgrim.’ The man said the word as if it were an insult. ‘What brings you to Harthill, stranger?’

‘I am a priest, on my way to Tatewic.’

The priest in the corner sat up, setting his double chin to jiggling. ‘A priest? Have the White Brothers sent you? To take over the grange in Tatewic?’

The White Brothers were Cistercian monks. They had owned no farmland in Tatewic when John was a child. He wondered to which abbey the grange belonged. ‘I have come to speak with Tatewic’s lord,’ he said. He looked back to the tavern keeper. ‘Tell me, is it still Rangaldr’s son, Caelin, who sits in the hall?’

‘Aye, same as it’s been these last forty years and more.’ The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s your business with him, priest?’

‘I come on behalf of Geoffrey, the bishop of Lincoln, bearing this message.’ John took a scroll of paper from inside his tunic and unfurled it on the table. In fact, he had not passed through Lincoln. In Bayeux, the bishop had been shocked to learn that the archdeacon of the Holy Sepulchre and abbot of Mount Sion was sleeping in his stables. In a transaction of dubious legality, John had sold the posts in return for passage to Portsmouth. The scroll was a record of the transaction. The tavern keeper squinted at it, but it was clear he could not read. John would be surprised if even the fat priest were lettered. Most village priests were as ignorant as their parishioners.

The tavern keeper was nodding, clearly impressed by the document, as John had hoped he would be. ‘Tatewic is less than three miles north, father, just past the woods.’

‘Tell me of Caelin,’ John said as he rolled up the scroll. ‘Is he a good lord?’

‘Hmph.’ The man in the cloak slammed down his tankard and rose. John could hear the clink of mail as he stomped to the door and stepped outside.

The man he had been drinking with turned on his bench to face John. ‘He’s good enough, when he’s here. He and our lord Serlby spend most of their days in France, campaigning for the King.’ The quarryman spat. ‘His wars bring us nothing but trouble.’

‘Aye,’ the tavern keeper agreed. ‘Lord Serlby was here only yesterday. He spoke of a new tax to fund King Henry’s crusade.’

The priest in the corner lowered his tankard. ‘A holy cause!’ he declared and then belched.

‘A waste of good coin, if you ask me,’ the quarryman grumbled.

The tavern keeper nodded. ‘Henry has been planning his crusade for longer than I can remember. It’s only another excuse to tax us. He won’t leave France, not now. Lord Serlby says that Richard has allied with Philip of France to make war against Henry. The Lionheart aims to take his father’s throne. Our good lords Serlby and Caelin have returned home to squeeze yet more silver from us to pay for the war that’s coming.’ The man snorted. ‘God save us from kings.’

‘Amen.’ John finished his ale and placed his last silver on the table. He went to the fire and pulled on his still damp cloak. He had reached the door when the tavern keeper called to him.

‘What’s this?’ he demanded as he held up the piece of silver. ‘I’ve never seen a coin like this.’

‘Silver is silver.’

The tavern keeper grunted and pocketed the coin. John stepped outside with staff in hand. The rain had stopped, but the road north was still muddy and pockmarked with puddles. He slogged his way past sloping fields where sheep grazed on the stubble left from the recent harvest, and entered an old wood. The occasional towering grey-trunked ash, already bare of leaves, stood out amongst the golden foliage of field maples and elms. A thick layer of leaves crunched under foot, and John breathed deeply of their rich scent. He had walked these very woods as a child. They smelt of home.

He entered a clearing. On the far side stood a stand of ancient oaks with gnarled trunks so thick that ten men could not have encircled them. Pigs were rooting for acorns beneath. As John approached, two men stepped out from behind the trees. One clutched an old, chipped sword and the other held a knife. The one with the sword had a thick blond beard and wore rusted mail. The other was a huge man in leather armour so old it was falling apart. He had close-set eyes and a simpleton’s slack-jawed smile. Outlaws. John had come across such men more than once during his long journey. Most were commoners who had joined their lord in his wars, and when they were done, had decided they did not wish to return to a life behind the plough.

John’s grip on the staff tightened. ‘I have no quarrel with you, good sirs.’

‘Sirs? D’you hear that, Walter?’ The man in mail roared with laughter, but his eyes remained cold and hard. Walter chuckled along with him. The man’s laughter stopped suddenly and he spat. ‘We’re no lords. And might be we have a quarrel with you.’

‘I am a poor priest. I carry nothing of value.’

‘We’ll see about that, father.’

A branch cracked behind him, and John whirled about. Just in time. A third outlaw lunged at him with a dagger. John sidestepped the blade and brought the butt of his staff up, cracking it against the side of the man’s skull. The outlaw fell, unmoving. John could hear the crunch of leaves and the jingle of mail as the other men rushed him. He turned to see the bearded man charging from his left with his sword held high. Walter rushed from the right. John stood his ground until the last moment and then stepped towards the man in mail and jabbed with the tip of his staff, catching him in the face. Walter was almost on John, and he spun away from the huge man’s clumsy blow and brought the staff around to catch him in the back of the knees. Walter fell face first, stabbing himself in the shoulder with his dagger. He rolled on to his back and lay screaming.

The man in mail was backing away. Blood ran from his nose to stain his beard crimson. ‘What sort of priest are you?’

John leaned casually on his staff. ‘The kind who baptizes with blood — yours.’

The man turned and ran. The outlaw who had attacked John from behind was still unconscious, an ugly bruise already forming at his temple. John recognized him as the cloaked man from the tavern. He took his dagger and tossed it into the woods and then turned to Walter. The huge man’s eyes were wide. ‘Please! Please!’ he begged. ‘Don’t kill me.’

‘Hold still.’ John knelt and wrenched the dagger from his shoulder. Walter squealed in pain. John made the sign of the cross over him. ‘May God save you from your evil ways.’ He tucked the dagger into his belt and strode away.

John left the woods behind and came upon a meadow where there grazed a single cow, its udder bulging with milk. Beyond the meadow lay Tatewic — two dozen wooden longhouses huddled around a well. The rain had started again by the time he reached the edge of the village where an imposing stone residence with glass windows stood. It had not been there when John was a boy. It had to be the grange.

Men and women came to their doors and stared at John as he made his way down the village’s only street. They were farmers mostly, kept inside by the rain, but one was a miller in an apron dusted with flour. Men and women alike had broad faces with red cheeks and eyes narrowed in suspicion. John did not recognize any of them, no more than they did him.

He reached the well and turned right between two houses. Tatewic hall lay straight ahead. It was a rectangular, two-storey building with narrow windows and walls of thick stone. It was separated from the village by a moat, but the drawbridge was down. As he crossed, John saw fat carp swimming in the water below. He reached the door and pounded on it with his fist. There was no answer. He pounded again, and a man in mail answered.

‘If you’ve come to beg,’ the guard growled, ‘you’d best be off.’ He had a grey beard that covered sagging jowls. His eyes were the bright green of spring leaves. John recognized those eyes.

‘Edwyn? I have come to see your lord.’

The guard blinked. ‘And who might you be?’

‘His brother.’

‘I have half a mind to have you whipped,’ Caelin said. John’s brother had not risen from the table where he had sat when John entered the great hall. Indeed, Caelin had not even looked up from his leg of lamb. When John had left, his younger brother had been a boy of thirteen. Now he was a man, thick of chest, with a fleshy face and full sandy-brown beard. He took a sip of wine and looked over the rim of the cup towards John. ‘My brother Iain died more than forty years ago.’

Iain. No one had called him that in many years. ‘I am called John, now. And I did not die. I took the cross and went to the Holy Land. See for yourself.’ John held out the scroll the Bishop of Bayeux had given him. His brother unrolled it and then set it aside.

‘I do not read.’

‘It says that I was archdeacon of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and abbot of Mount Sion. I ceded the posts to the Bishop of Bayeux.’

Caelin picked up the paper. ‘Turstan!’ he called to the guard. ‘Have Father Hugh examine this. I wish to know what it says.’ Caelin sat back and turned his pale-blue eyes on John. ‘And why have you returned after so many years?’

‘Jerusalem fell. Only Tyre, Antioch and Tripoli remain in Christian hands. Surely you must have heard?’

‘We hear much and more from overseas, most of it lies.’ Caelin took another drink and his eyes narrowed as he examined John more closely. ‘You have Iain’s eyes and jaw. You could almost be him.’

‘I am him, Caelin. I was there when you dropped Father’s favourite carving knife down the well, when you kissed Fat Sally down by the smithy. I played at knights with you in this very hall.’

Caelin set his cup aside. He pushed back his chair and rose to stand before John. He gripped his shoulders with strong hands and stared into John’s eyes. Then he embraced him. ‘By God! It is you!’ Caelin stepped back, and when he spoke again, his voice had an edge. ‘Why are you here, Iain?’

‘Do not fear, Brother. I have not come to dispute your claim to Tatewic. I am a priest now.’

‘As Father wished.’ Caelin smiled and embraced him again. ‘Welcome home, Brother. Sit. Steward, wine!’ A thin young man brought another bottle and a cup. Caelin poured for John. ‘We thought you dead, Iain. You left without a word.’

‘I had good reason. Our brother, Ranulf-’

‘Was a piece of shit. No one here has forgotten what he did, the rebellion he invented to win the Earl of York’s favour. He cost a dozen families their land. Father was hanged because of his lies. No one blamed you for what you did, Iain. I would have killed Ranulf myself, had I been older.’

‘Earl William would not have been so understanding.’

‘William is dead and gone, and we have a new king. I have fought beside him. Henry is a good man.’

‘I am glad to hear it.’ John took a sip of wine. It tasted of burnt wood and mushrooms, but he swallowed nonetheless. ‘It is good to see you, Brother. When I left, you were only a boy.’

‘And you a beardless youth.’ Caelin sighed as he twisted in his chair to stretch his back, which produced a loud crack. ‘We have grown old, Brother.’

‘How is Mother?’

‘Gone these five years.’

John frowned. ‘And Aedwyn?’

‘Our sister is married and a mother of six.’ Caelin slapped the table. ‘By the devil! I can scarcely believe you are here. I could hardly be more surprised if Christ himself visited my table. What are your plans, Brother? The King is gathering his lords in France. Will you come to war with me?’

‘I have had enough of blood and death. I wish only for a place to live out my days as a simple priest.’

‘That you shall have. The brothers at Roche Abbey have a grange in Tatewic with a well-appointed house for the overseer of their lands. He died some weeks ago and has yet to be replaced. The abbot owes me a favour. I shall speak with him on your behalf.’

‘You have my thanks.’

Caelin grinned and slapped John on the shoulder. ‘By God, it is good to have you back.’

‘It is good to be home, Brother.’