The Tolls of Death

Chapter Two

On that same day Simon and Baldwin rose early and celebrated Mass in a tiny, all but empty chapel before leaving the coast to set off inland for home.

Later in the morning, reaching a small stand of trees at the top of a hill, they paused a while, staring north and east, then dismounted and took a drink from their skins. Sitting with his back to a young oak, Simon closed his eyes and sighed. ‘It was almost worthwhile climbing this far just for the pleasure of halting and resting!’

There came a grunt from his side. Bob, the young boy whom the ostler had sent with them to bring back the three mounts when they reached the next town, was feeling distinctly put out, and Simon grinned to himself. A gangling lad of some eleven or twelve summers, Bob had declared himself more than happy to ride with them as far as they wanted, but that was two days ago, and now he was tired and irritable, glowering at Simon or Baldwin whenever either spoke. He obviously felt he was being taken too far and too fast for the penny he had been promised, and his expression as he gazed about him showed that he was nervous in these foreign parts. Simon wondered how far from home he had travelled before. Surely not so far as this, he thought.

‘A little exercise is always good,’ Baldwin remarked. He was standing still, staring out to the east. ‘You should try it more often, lad.’

Simon heard a snort, but as was his wont, Bob said nothing. Instead, Simon sat up and rested on his elbow. The ground was damp and chilly, but he was overheated. ‘Do you know any of this country?’

Baldwin shook his head. ‘Sometimes a man from Cornwall would come and present a matter at Exeter, and I have met knights at the court of our lord, Hugh de Courtenay, but I have never travelled this way myself before.’

‘A great shame,’ Simon grunted as he rose to his feet. ‘Christ’s pain. If I sit there any longer, I swear I shall fall asleep.’ He stretched, then gasped. ‘Ow! I am too old for all this toil and meandering about the countryside. Once we arrive home, I’m going to rest for at least a month.’

‘What? The new master of Dartmouth will rest on his laurels when there is all that work to be done?’ Baldwin asked with malicious pleasure.

Simon’s face fell. ‘You evil … I’d forgotten that for a moment!’

‘Yes. Your move to Dartmouth.’

‘Must you remind me that the first thing I have to do on returning is pack up and move to the coast, to live with hordes of sailors and shipmen. My God! And my daughter … I wonder what has become of Edith in my absence.’

Seeing his crestfallen expression, Baldwin regretted his brief attempt at humour. Their relationship was too important for him to want to upset the other man. ‘Simon,’ he said, going to stand at his friend’s side, ‘when you reach the coast I am sure that it will be a delight to you. There can be little better than a home near the sea. The atmosphere is cleaner, fresher and more invigorating there.’

‘And it will no doubt remind me at every opportunity of the pleasures of this pilgrimage,’ Simon rasped sarcastically.

Baldwin sniffed, but couldn’t restrain his grin. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Well, let’s get on with it, then. If I’m to be reminded of my pains and sores, I might as well reflect on them from the warmth of my own fire as soon as possible.’

‘Masters, I have to return soon with these mounts,’ the boy piped up.

Baldwin eyed him with dissatisfaction. ‘We have paid for them and for you.’

‘That was money to travel to the next town, but you have forced me to come twice that distance. Do you expect me to go all the way to … to Exeter?’ Bob demanded, picking the most distant city he knew of.

‘Not quite, no,’ Baldwin said unsympathetically. Then Simon touched his arm, and Baldwin gave him a sharp look, which slowly transformed into comprehension.

Simon had lost a son only a few short years ago, and a matter of days ago he had been responsible, in part, for another young man’s death. That death was a sore regret to him, as Baldwin knew. It was a matter he could all too easily understand, because the reason for both of them launching themselves upon their recent pilgrimage was another death, one for which Baldwin was himself responsible.

Baldwin nodded, and it was good to see Simon give him a short grin in return. There was no need for words. Baldwin understood his feelings: Simon had no desire to see this boy taken too far from his home and put in danger. Any long trip in these uncertain times was hazardous. Horse thieves could easily murder a youth like Bob to get their hands on the mounts. Better that he should be released from their service as soon as possible and sent homewards.

‘Young Bob, you have to return to your home. Do you know how far it is to the next town? If we can find an ostler prepared to hire us more horses and a boy to ride with us, we shall release you. Will that suffice?’

‘Yes. I suppose.’

‘Where is the next town, then?’ Baldwin asked.

Bob scowled. ‘I think it’s Bodmin. After that, all is rough moorland.’

‘At least you’ll feel at home there, Simon,’ Baldwin said lightly.

‘Yes,’ Simon said aloud, but inwardly he felt a little clutch, like a small hand pulling at his heart’s strings. It could be one of the last times he rode over stannary lands. Soon he would be installed in Dartmouth, and then he’d have little to do with miners or moors.

With a pang of loss, poignant and terrible, he realised how much he would miss both.

Richer atte Brooke chuckled quietly to himself as he trailed after Serlo on the track to the church.

‘You are pleased with your threats?’ Warin asked stiffly. ‘For my part, I see no advantage in them, and the potential for a lot of disorder in the vill.’

‘But did you see the fat arse’s face?’ Richer asked with delight.

Warin’s voice was colder as he said, ‘Friend Richer, I do not wish for the peasants to be roused to anger over your insults against one of their own.’

‘There will be no disorder, Squire,’ Richer said more seriously. ‘The fat fool is pushing too hard. He seeks ever more money from people, and this shows him I have a hold over him. If he misbehaves, I can crush him. The news that I am aware of his appeal to have some of his payment for the farm refunded will keep him sensible, and then I can speak to him of other matters.’

Warin eyed him speculatively. ‘Do not endanger the vill’s peace. I would be very unhappy, were you to do that.’

‘I won’t,’ Richer said easily. And he wouldn’t — not unless Serlo gave him no choice. Not that it was Serlo with whom he must concern himself — the dangerous brother of the two was Alex. If the Constable thought that someone was giving his kid brother a hard time, he’d wade in to protect him.

Yes, he should be more cautious with Alexander.

In the church, Father Adam watched over his flock with a feeling of distaste.

Look at these foul peasants! Standing in small groups, haggling over their bits of business — didn’t they realise that they were in God’s House? Tatty churls, breath reeking of garlic, unwashed armpits adding to the stench, their hosen soaked and foul with mud or worse, their faces grimy and hands all blackened and callused — they were hardly the sort of men Adam wanted in his church.

He saw Serlo arrive, and watched him cross the floor to join his brother Alexander. What a pair they were! Alex was at least intelligent, which was more than you could say about Serlo. The latter was revered only for the strength in those great biceps. Men were naturally cautious about upsetting someone who could pick them up with one hand and toss them into the next field, but they should worry more about his brother, the suave, collected Constable of the Peace who appeared to own more than half of the vill. As usual, Alex greeted Serlo with a broad smile and clasp of his forearm, slapping him on the back. Then he introduced him to the group around him. No doubt discussing the hire of his oxen, Father Adam thought. The beasts would be in demand to haul the heavy carts laden with the crop, and Alexander possessed a near monopoly of them.

Still, Alexander was the least of Adam’s problems. If the people of the vill were owned by him, Adam was owned by another man. And he was terrified.

At two and thirty years, he was old enough to know the dangers and escape them, but his life had ever been a series of errors and misjudgements, and now he had made the worst mistake of his life … if it felt natural and right, that was surely only a proof of the depth of his fall. Once he had been a good, right-thinking man, devoted to the cure of the souls in his little parish, and never, not even once, had he been tempted by the pretty women of the vill. Now, though, he had lapsed. He was in love, and had even declared his love. Oh, Christ in Heaven, save me, he prayed.

Love … yes, that is what he felt — and yet it was unreciprocated! That filled him with a yearning so intense, he would prefer death to this dreadful half-existence. What is more, the rural dean must soon hear of the affair. Oh, Christ in chains! That evil-minded old pig would be sure to come and haul Adam off to his court, and the priest would be lucky to escape a severe punishment.

That in itself was not the worst of it, though. Punishment was one thing: it lasted a short period, and then life should return to normal. However, the rural dean might well ensure that he was taken away permanently, perhaps installed in a convent and left there to wither until he was a terrible old man, like the ancients he had seen during his time at Buckfast Abbey. The thought of ending up like them was petrifying. Holy Mother, the idea was enough to make his eyes prickle with tears.

Damn them! Damn them all! He’d not be taken away again. Adam had been installed in that accursed monastery when he was little better than a child, and when he’d tried to escape, he’d been declared apostate and hunted down like a dog. Excommunicate, he had lived in perpetual terror, knowing that he might be found and returned some day.

And then they’d caught him and back he’d gone. There he’d been forced to endure the snide remarks of all the other monks, their bitter jibes and the corporal punishment, the humiliation of lying prostrate before the altar, the grim effort of speaking the psalters, the fasting … so many punishments, and all wrong; all wrong!

The Bishop had saved him. It was when he had visited the convent and the new Prior, God bless him, had spoken to him of the crimes committed by Adam and — so Adam shrewdly guessed — hinted that there was something not entirely right about his position here in the monastery. Later the Bishop had asked to meet Adam.

He had been exhausted at the time after yet another fast day spent on his knees in the Lady Chapel, but then he told his tale, how he had come here as a novice, but after his year’s probation, he had been taken through to the church and persuaded to make it his profession. And this when he was not yet fourteen years old! It was illegal for him to have been bullied into professing so young. It was wrong in any case for his novitiate to have begun before he was thirteen, and he was not old enough to make the vows. The whole matter was organised by his stepfather (his real father had died some while before), who wanted a potentially rebellious and expensive brat permanently removed from the family home.

The Bishop, Walter of Exeter, was enraged by this injustice. Seldom had Adam seen a man of God in full flow of righteous anger. The monks were bawled out for breaking the law, especially when one confessed that the motivation behind their actions was the promise of money for the priory.

So he had escaped the place. With the Bishop’s help, he had been trained as a rector, and now he had the cottage behind the church here. It was a spacious place, so that he might offer hospitality to those who needed it, even if it was far too large for him as a single man. Still, that meant he was able to look after poor Julia and her child, which was good. Protecting her was saving her, and her parish was saved embarrassment too. Mind, the extra money she brought was welcome. He was saving it against the day when he might have to leave this place and run again.

The day when he must again wear the wolf’s head.

Richer entered the church with Warin and stood surveying the congregation. He could see Serlo standing with his brother, and as the door slammed shut behind him, Richer smiled broadly to see how both men’s heads snapped around, as though they were expecting him to launch some sort of attack on them even here in the church. Serlo in particular had the look of one who was about to suffer a ferocious headache. Richer had suffered from them himself over the years and he knew what it was to have a migraine.

He sauntered towards the pillar on the right-hand side of the church with his companion, leaning against it negligently and avoiding the stares of the two brothers. He had many years of antipathy stored up against them, and his deep dislike for Serlo had been exacerbated on hearing of Athelina’s terror at the possibility of being thrown from her house. Serlo and Alex obviously thought they could run this vill as if it were their own private fiefdom, even to the extent of evicting poor Athelina and her children from their home. Well, it was time that their tyranny was ended, and today was as good a day as any to begin the process.

If Richer could, he would have given Athelina all the money he possessed, but he had none. God, but Serlo was a pathetic churl! If only he hadn’t depended all the time on his brother’s protection, perhaps he would have grown into a stronger fellow, a man in his own right. As it was, he was little more than Alex’s henchman.

Look at him! Peering back over his shoulder like some fishwife who suspected that the stall next-door had spoken of rotting herring in her barrels. Alexander was no better; his face was twisted with hatred, like a man who’d bitten into a lemon thinking it was a sweetmeat. Pathetic, the pair of them!

Serlo was a shortish man, florid-faced from too much strong ale, and with a belly to match his consumption. He and his brother, who was nearly as short, had strange, heavily jowled faces that were somehow broader than long, and both had the same pale shade of hair: not red, but not brown, as though their Celtic ancestry had been washed from them just as their blood had been watered by mixing with too many foreigners. The two brothers were very similar — until a man came close to them.

Yes, it was when you drew nearer that you saw the differences, Richer reckoned. Serlo was born some three years after Alexander, and he had been stamped from a seal which was already worn from over-use. Alexander was sharp, clear and bright. His eyes shone with intelligence, his face was calm, his language precise, like a man who measured every word he heard or spoke. He had the brains, and balls to go with them.

Not so Serlo. Hazy of intellect, all he understood was bullying, if what Richer had heard in the castle and vill was true. Serlo was harsh but cowardly, the sort who might beat his wife or children. He enjoyed power, and threatened anyone weaker than himself. He had little enough actual courage, yet stronger men would look to their safety, for Serlo would bottle up his bitterness and let it rush out in a torrent of rage when his enemy was least expecting it. He’d employ a chance ambush, taking a defenceless man by surprise and beating him — or worse. Oh yes, a weak man could often be the most dangerous, as Richer knew.

The brothers’ only saving grace was their loyalty to each other. Alexander had always taken immense pride in his younger sibling, and although Serlo was an evil brat, he could never see any wrong in him. All throughout their boyhood, Alex would forgive Serlo’s peevishness, his avariciousness and cruelty. Whenever another lad sought to put Serlo right, Alexander would protect him; even when Serlo had stolen from another child, Alexander denied his guilt. It had started when the two boys had lost their mother — not that her death was an excuse. They were bad, both of them. What they wanted, they would take.

He could remember the pair of them from when he was young, and the stories about them and their father — and the death of their mother.

Their father, Almeric, had crowed over his firstborn, apparently, and had been prompted by the rector to name him after some King of ancient times; then, after many miscarriages, Serlo had been born too, their mother dying during childbirth and leaving their father broken-hearted. At once Alexander had taken responsibility for his sibling. A friend of Richer’s mother had given birth not long before and was still in pap, so she wetnursed the new baby. When Serlo cried for milk, Alexander fetched her; Alexander changed his soiled clouts and washed them. It was Alexander who fed the child when he was weaned, and Alexander who taught him to walk, to play, and later to use a sling to bring down pigeons for the pot.

It was a lot for a youngster to cope with, but Almeric had been useless. Devastated by the death of his wife, he became jealous and resentful, as though he blamed everyone else in the world for her going. He grew into a tight-fisted, grasping soul who saw any money as his own, and only relinquished it with difficulty, as though handing it over was more painful than drawing a tooth. It was no surprise that afterwards his sons should have become so money-minded.

In a small vill like Cardinham, a man’s behaviour towards his children was noticed and commented upon, and men often had to warn Almeric to stop chastising the boys. Richer could remember his own father going over there to restrain Almeric when he was drunk. The trouble was, Richer heard his father confide to the old blacksmith Iwan over a pot of cider, he had never forgiven Serlo for causing his wife’s death, and could scarcely look at the boy without cursing him. When Alexander defended him, Almeric took his strap to Alexander too, reinforcing the unity of the pair, until they became as one, like two pieces of steel forge-welded by a smith, crushed together by the blows of fate until no man could have separated them.

The two lads had grown like that, bullied by their father, who relied on other men’s wives to see to his children and growing ever more bitter. No matter how diligent he was in the search for more wealth, he remained poor. His general ineffectualness with his sheep and single ox meant that he was never in a position to improve his lot. Alexander had been loyal, though. He had defended his incompetent father before all the rest of the vill, resorting to fists from an early age. Once he had thumped Richer when he laughed at Almeric’s foolish rage after one of his sheep had escaped from his fold and wandered onto the lord’s lands. It ate the lord’s corn, and was thus forfeit at a time when Almeric could least afford it. Alexander battered Richer unmercifully for that, but he wouldn’t try that again in a hurry. Not now. Richer was stronger than both of them and had the protection of the lord of the manor.

Alexander was staring back at him now, with those curious, pale eyes of his. He had a way of staring that was unsettling; like a man who was so taken with concentrating on a single thought that normal human instincts were forgotten.

If it weren’t for having met Athelina again, Richer could regret ever coming back to Cardinham. There was nothing for him here; the brothers ruled everything. Or had done. Perhaps now Squire Warin would make a difference.

Glancing about him, Richer tried to spot Athelina, but there were too many people in the church as the priest stood intoning the strange words of the language which only priests and religious understood. Richer often wondered if the words actually meant something. Monks and canons said that they did, but if a man couldn’t understand words, didn’t that prove they were meaningless?

No, there was no sign of her through the press of bodies in the nave. It was a shame. Athelina alone made his return worthwhile. She was older, a little worn, beset by a thousand fears and regrets, but within she was still the same loving woman he had known before. Her smile could outshine the sun, and seeing him again, she had lost that hunted look. She was, for a few moments at least, his lover from fifteen years ago. He could love her again. Perhaps he could marry her … she might accept him, even after all this time.

As Richer mused, he saw Serlo nudge his older brother again. They were scared; both of them. So they should be! If Richer could, he would put the wind up them infinitely more before many hours were past.

There were times when Alex could cheerfully have put his hands about his brother’s neck and throttled him. The damned fool was so keen on antagonising other people.

However, it was hard to see what Serlo could have done this time. Richer had only recently reappeared, and he seemed to have taken up where they had all left off so many years ago, hating Serlo and Alex just as much as before. He couldn’t blame them for the accident, surely. Then he saw Richer gaze about him expectantly. Perhaps that was it — Athelina! Yes, he’d loved her before he left, and maybe he hoped to pick up with her again, all these years later.

Whatever his gripe. Alexander wouldn’t demean himself by exchanging nasty stares in the middle of the Mass. Instead he faced the altar again and relaxed. He was in God’s House.

If only he could have taught poor Serlo to be more self-possessed. The trouble was, whenever he tried to correct him, his brother got upset — wore a confused, hurt expression as if to say, ‘Can’t I be praised even this once?’ For Serlo, there could never be enough praise.

Perhaps it was all because he was so spoiled when he was younger. He didn’t have to work as a child — not so much as Alexander — and didn’t appreciate the efforts needed to protect himself and his family now that he was grown up.

Still, no matter what, Alexander would continue to protect him. Alexander knew how to, and knew he must. There were always ways. And if Richer atte Brooke thought he could march back to his old vill and start throwing his weight about, he had another think coming.

As Father Adam lifted the cup of wine high over his head and muttered his incantation, Alex promised himself that he would personally draw Richer’s guts if the man posed any threat to Serlo. He’d kill any man who threatened his little brother.

As Father Adam broke the bread, in the cottage nearby, beyond the broad green, there was a creaking. A rat scuttled under the door and squatted, sniffing, his nose twitching at the rich odours. Soon he lowered himself again and pattered silently along the edge of the floor until he reached the palliasse. There he stopped and sniffed again, and his tongue shot out to lick at the mess on the edge of the rough mattress.

When a gust of wind blew, the door rattled and the rat hesitated, but it wasn’t that which made him pause and then scurry from the place: it was the slow and mechanical squeak from the rafter overhead.

The slow squeak of the hempen rope bound tightly about the woman’s neck.