The Mad Monk of Gidleigh Read online

  It was strange there without the young priest. The lean-to shack where Mark had lived was warm with the fire that the guards had set blazing in the hearth, but there was no comfort in the place. It was a bachelor’s house, merely a chamber in which an exhausted man could rest from his toil. Piers thought it felt too much like his own home: bleak without a woman’s touch to enliven it. Since his own wife had died, he was more aware of that lack than before. While Agnes lived, he assumed that the comfort he enjoyed was no more than that which all men had as their due, but then she died. A disease attacked her, and in the space of a few days, she was gone. Since then, he had come to realise that his contentment with her company was in reality due to her. A vast emptiness had opened in his life once she was buried. The sparkle had gone, and he thought, looking around Mark’s little cell, that there was much the same atmosphere of loss here.

  In the chapel he kneeled and gave a quick prayer for Mary, but also for his dead Agnes. Not a day passed that he didn’t think of her, and he found the cool silence in the chapel conducive to reflection, giving him time to gather his thoughts before he came here to Mary’s body.

  She had been rolled onto a blanket, naked, while the Coroner studied her, prodding and prying with the subtlety and sympathy of a butcher with a hog’s carcass before the vill’s jury. All he cared about was the fines he could impose. Piers had observed a dignified silence while the money was totted up, convinced that the cash would mostly end up in the Coroner’s pocket. You couldn’t trust officials who collected taxes. Too often, most of the money they took would stick to them.

  ‘You couldn’t tell him much, could you?’ he said conversationally to Elias.

  The peasant was older than Piers by some four years or so; Piers remembered him being almost married when he himself was still being sent out to hurl stones at the birds pecking at the grain as it was sowed.

  ‘What more do you expect me to tell him?’ Elias snapped. He had not aged well. His wife had also died years before, but Elias had never learned to cope with his loss. It had been worse for Elias than for Piers, partly because his wife had died during the birth of his son, who also perished, and then his first and only child died during the famine seven or eight years ago, raped, and suffering a slow death. At least Piers still had his own son and daughter. The lad lived with him, while his daughter had married and moved away to Oakhampton. Still, Piers saw her every so often, and her children, when he went up to the market in South Zeal, the new town roughly halfway between them.

  Up till his wife’s death, Elias had been a cheery companion, always one of the first with a song or a story in the ale-house, but since his daughter’s death in the famine, he had grown withdrawn and surly. His greying hair was unkempt at all times, his heavy, round head tended to hang like a whipped cur’s, and his craggy features remained fixed in a scowl from dawn to dusk, his brown eyes all but hidden beneath his grim brows. He wore a thick grey beard that almost concealed his mouth and his solid jawline, but any strength it gave to his appearance was marred by the particles of bread and mashed pea that adhered to it.

  If anything, his demeanour today was blacker than usual, a fact which gave Piers pause for thought. ‘Nothing. I was just interested.’

  Elias said nothing, but Piers saw him shoot a look towards Huward. The miller had left his wife to her grief, and was marching towards the men carrying his daughter’s body.

  ‘We can take her to the chapel,’ Piers said comfortingly, but inwardly he wondered how he would cope were this his own daughter.

  ‘Be damned to that! You think I want her body set down in there, in the place where he raped her?’ Huward rasped.

  The miller didn’t speak directly to Piers. He couldn’t. This was the saddest day of his life. Until he had been called to see Mary’s body, he had known only happiness. His wife was a source of delight, his daughters were both adored by him, and he had a son to take on the mill after his own death. This sudden collapse from joy to despair had left him with a more acute pain at his loss that he would have thought it possible for one man to bear.

  Since confirming that the body was his daughter’s, he’d been filled with misery for the death of his little Mary – his little angel, as he always called her. He had the two girls, Mary and Flora, and Mary was always the calmer, quieter of the two. Flora, his flower, was sweet-natured, but more turbulent to live with. When she had a mood, all in the house knew it. Many was the time he had been forced to roar at her to be silent when she was teasing Mary or Ben, their brother.

  Walking here, he had known that the inquest would be grievous. It was the hardest thing, burying your children. He remembered his mother saying that once, when his brother Tom died. She’d said that it was the toughest thing she’d ever had to do, putting him in his grave. Well, perhaps it was, but for Huward, the hardest part was the inquest. Seeing her poor, bloodied body being stripped and exposed for all to see. Every man in the vill standing there, eyeing her – oh, not with any lust, no, but that wasn’t the point. They could all see her, his little Mary, naked, like a whore.

  That bastard priest would regret his brief fling and murder, Huward swore to himself. The devil-spawn had destroyed more than Huward’s little girl, he had killed off Huward’s grandchild and taken away the peace of Huward’s home. He felt as though with that one blow, the killer had slaughtered his entire family.

  ‘You think I’d let you take her there?’ he said brokenly. His hand reached out to stroke her cheek. ‘Cold. She’s so cold!’

  Piers put a hand to Huward’s shoulder. ‘Come, let’s go to the tavern and find you a good draught of cider.’

  ‘I don’t need cider. All I want is revenge.’ He thrust forward and took his daughter up in his arms, forcing the men who held the blanket to relinquish their burden. Huward softly turned her face to him, then tucked it into his shoulder, his arms about her back and behind her legs. Then he turned away, and set off in the direction of Gidleigh and the church there.

  Chapter Seven

  When Baldwin ran to the stable and bellowed for Jack, he was aware of a strange feeling that things weren’t right.

  Partly it must be the fact that Edgar was missing. Every other time he had been forced to raise the Hue and Cry, Edgar had been at his side. When Baldwin rode in search of a felon or some other assumed miscreant, Edgar was a permanent guard, always nearby. But today Edgar was at the manor protecting Jeanne, Baldwin’s wife.

  Edgar had been his servant for more years than he cared to remember now, originally his sergeant in the Knights Templar. Every knight went into battle with a trusted man-at-arms to back up the knight’s charge, to protect his flank and to fight at his side, loyal unto death. After the Templars had been destroyed, Edgar had refused to leave Baldwin’s side.

  However, his would not be the only missing face, Baldwin knew. The compact, wiry hunter, John Black, who had joined Baldwin on some of his early chases, was dead; he had fallen from his pony into a river during the floods of the winter of 1321. Tanner, too, who had been so successful as the Constable of the Hundred, a large, stolid man with a face and head that might have been carved from granite, had suddenly been stricken with a malady last summer, and had succumbed in three days.

  Life was nothing if not fleeting. Baldwin couldn’t help but notice that the years appeared to flash past with increasing speed, and the thought was sad. He had only just found a woman with whom he felt he could spend the remainder of his life, and he regretted the years before he had met her. They felt wasted. Although he was no modern chivalrous knight, a lust-filled, salacious fool like those who thought that the only battle worth fighting was that for a woman’s virginity, he sometimes found himself thinking that if only he had met Jeanne earlier, he would have gained more enjoyment from his life.

  He was getting old. He detested the idea that he might soon leave Jeanne, a feeling made still more poignant by the fact of his daughter, little Richalda. Almost one year old, she was utterly dependent upon Jeanne and him,
and he felt that responsibility keenly. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he truly had a reason to live, or so he felt. He had loved Jeanne since he first met her in Tavistock nearly four years ago, and he knew that she loved him in return, but all the time he was aware that she was a strong personality in her own right. If he were to die, his widow would mourn him, mourn him deeply, but she would not expire for despair. Nor would he want her to.

  Still, with the wind in his face and a powerful mount beneath him, it was impossible to feel gloomy. Men died on days like this, and if he were to die today, he would do so with a smile on his face, glad that he had spent his life honourably.

  Unlike this priest, he thought, and the smile was wiped from his face in a moment. It was hard to understand how a man who had professed himself determined to live by God’s own rules could slip so dramatically into such a mire of dishonour and shame.

  Baldwin had never met the cleric from Gidleigh, but he had heard that the fellow was a youngster. If that was true, Baldwin could begin to comprehend the story: a lonely young man placed in a drear and miserable location near the moors. Long winter nights in which to brood; chill, wet weather to make him wonder at God’s reasons for creating such a land; monosyllabic neighbours whose dialect would be largely incomprehensible and who would either distrust a foreigner or be so respectful to a priest that they would find it hard to open their mouths in his presence. And in the middle of all this misery, a sudden ray of light: a young woman, her lips promising soft kisses, her breasts begging to be caressed, her body suggesting fire and warmth and rest.

  Baldwin had been a celibate warrior monk for most of his adult life, and he was all too aware of the temptations of the flesh. But he had not succumbed – apart from a few occasions before he had taken his vows – and there was no reason why this fellow should have done so either.

  What was he doing heading this way? There were only two explanations Baldwin could envisage. Either he was expecting to escape: flee the shire by running east or flee the country by jumping on a ship; or he wanted to get to the Bishop’s palace and put his side of the story in the Bishop’s court. If he could make it that far, he would escape the secular authorities.

  He would not be the first priest to do so, Baldwin knew. Stories abounded of priests who tried to avoid the shaming experience of being captured and gaoled, called liars when they claimed Benefit of Clergy, until they were taken to the Lord’s court and could prove that they could recite the Pater Noster. That was usually good enough. It was rare for a lord to dismiss his claim after that, and for good reason. Woe betide the knight or banneret who dared flout the authority of Mother Church. She protected Her own. The Pope was the unchallenged ruler of the spiritual world, the successor to St Paul, more powerful than any monarch. A king could have you executed; the Pope could condemn you to hellfire for all eternity.

  Charitably, Baldwin wondered if that was the cleric’s aim, to get to Exeter, so that he could fall on his knees before his Bishop and apologise, confessing his guilt so that he could perform a penance that would save his soul. It was quite possible.

  The alternative was that the fellow was making his way east or to Topsham to catch a ship. That was perfectly likely too, but Baldwin was not persuaded. If he wanted to avoid capture entirely, the easiest route away from danger would be away from the Bishop’s authority. A man determined to survive outside the law could live rough for weeks on end in the woods and moors heading westwards, and there were plenty of ports that way, too. Why run the risk of a brother cleric recognising him by running straight towards the Cathedral where he had once lived, when he could head in the opposite direction?

  No, Baldwin was comfortable with the inference that this cleric was trying to get back to the Bishop. And Baldwin was determined to prevent him succeeding. The murderer of a young woman and a child deserved a little discomfort by being held in the local gaol for a short while, so far as Baldwin was concerned.

  When he had mounted his horse and trotted out to the roadway, there was already a crowd of armed men and boys waiting, most of them mounted on large horses better suited to ploughing or carting than galloping, who had arrived in response to the horn-blast and shouting of the man from North Tawton.

  Baldwin had to stop himself glancing about for his old Constable, Tanner. Tanner would have made all these men sort themselves into some sort of order, arranging them by location, to prevent any fears of fighting among them. However, in Tanner’s place there were now two Constables, Godwen and Thomas, both of whom were studiously ignoring each other although they sat a scant four yards apart. Seeing them, Baldwin groaned to himself.

  This chase might well become more arduous than he had expected.

  Piers walked behind Huward and his burden, his heart leaden as he saw how the miller stumbled and tripped in his misery.

  At any other time it would have been a pleasant walk. For once there were no clouds, the wind had stilled, and the low sun was casting a bright light all about. Shadows stretched out against the dark soil, and trees looked stark without their leaves.

  The lane was sunken between walls on either side, and Piers could see the great hills of Dartmoor to the west. At this time of day, the sunlight caught their southern flanks and lighted the heather with a golden hue. First thing in the morning, when the weather was clear, the sun had an oddly pink colour to it. It had always made Piers look. Somehow he never thought it looked natural.

  Nothing was natural today, he reckoned as he set his jaw and glowered at the ground before him. The mud was almost ankle-deep again here, and he could feel it soaking into his boots and squelching between his chilled toes. He would have to clean the leather carefully later, when he had a chance, or he’d have to replace the boots before long, and that was an expense he could live without if possible.

  Mary looked like a sleeping child again. Her eyes were closed, and her face rested on Huward’s shoulder just as though she had dropped off in her father’s arms. Just as Piers’s own daughter used to. He sighed; when they got to the church, he would give thanks to God for the fact that his own daughter was fine, happily married, a mother herself. He could not imagine how he would have behaved if she had been slaughtered in this way.

  It was plain lucky that the miller had a wife to look after as well as everything else. If not, Piers was sure that Huward would have run after the pissy priest, no matter what his master said. That would have caused many more problems, and Piers didn’t want problems. His post was an annual elected one, and he saw no reason to make trouble. This death was bad enough. Fines for breaking the King’s Peace, a fine for the weapon that was used, more costs would undoubtedly mount, and all when the vill had to cope with the death of a popular girl.

  They had reached the top of Gidleigh now, and the road curved towards the castle and church. There Piers caught sight of Elias once more. The old peasant had a nervous expression on his face, and Piers could see him glancing from side to side as though anticipating an attack from some quarter. Then his eye lighted on Osbert, and his attention focused.

  Piers saw his expression, and when he looked at Osbert, he could see why Elias was staring so hard. Poor Osbert looked devastated. He looked desperate to conceal his tears and misery as though such sentiments were unmanly, sniffing and wiping at his eyes with a hand that was quick and cursory, as though he was pretending that there were no tears there, that he was too strong to weep for a girl, as though he was simply scratching at an irritation. It was unnecessary. Everyone in the vill knew that he had adored Mary. Most men had, especially those who were marriageable. Osbert must have dreamed of owning her, Piers thought, and they would have made a pleasing couple, her so slim and attractive, him bold and strong and tall. Yes, they’d have made a handsome pair.

  The sadness assailed him again and Piers’s mind turned to other things. He would have to stop with Elias and take a moment to speak to him, but the little band swept on, and it would have seemed disrespectful to the memory of Mary if he had tried
to collar the older peasant.

  He would have to talk to him later, Piers thought to himself as he followed the weeping Huward into the church itself. At the door he turned back, but instead of staring at Elias, his gaze went to Osbert. Osbert met his look for a moment, but then the young man turned and walked slowly back towards the mill.

  It was much later that Ben walked into the house and spat at the floor when he realised there was no meal waiting. His parents were too taken up with grief to worry about mundane things like food. He wasn’t, though. He was starving. Hadn’t eaten since late morning.

  He’d been supposed to go out and help Osbert with the hedging on Huward’s fields after the inquest, but he couldn’t be bothered. It wasn’t as though his father would punish him, not if he kept his head low, and he didn’t want to stand in a cold field, feet freezing to the soil, helping Osbert to cut part-way through branches until they could be bent back, fixing them in place by hooking them under stakes. They didn’t have to be enormously strongly held, because it was the ditch and high turf wall that held the animals in their pasture, but it was good to tidy up the hedges at the top, if only because it was a useful source of firewood.

  No, hacking at a blackthorn hedge was not Ben’s idea of fun. Instead he’d gone to an ale-house on the Chagford road and drunk himself into a merry state as soon as the inquest was over. Not that the mood was going to last if he didn’t quickly find something to eat.

  ‘Come back, then, have you?’

  ‘Osbert! What are you doing, sneaking in like that? You should–’

  ‘You should hold your tongue, you should. I’ve been working while you’ve been out drinking again, haven’t you? While your sister was being taken to church, too – dead.’

  ‘Leave it, Osbert. I used up my grief when I heard she was dead.’

  ‘You managed to make it last a whole day?’

  ‘Very funny. I suppose you’ll keep it going for a good long while, won’t you? You’ll make up for any lack on my part.’