A Friar's Bloodfeud: (Knights Templar 20) Page 2

  They’d started in the middle of the pasture between the two vills, twelve men and six women from Monkleigh, fourteen men and nine women from Iddesleigh, with a nervous-looking reeve from Monk Oakhampton between them. He looked little more than two and twenty, and his pale hazel eyes flitted from one face to another as he handled the ball. Then, when he felt he could take the tension no longer, he’d reached right down, and then hurled the bladder up as high as he could, immediately bolting from between the two sides.

  There had been a moment’s silence. All eyes were on the ball, slowing as it rose, spinning gently in the clear, cold air. It was heavy, a pig’s bladder stuffed full of dried peas, stitched tightly, slippery to the hand. But as it started to fall, both sides had rushed forward to grab it.

  They had strained there in the field as they always did, and when the break came, it was a thoughtless moment on the other side that gave Perkin his chance.

  A woman scratched and tore at Beorn, and he grew furious with the pain of the welts she raised on his face. Others would have knocked the vixen down, or retreated before her, but not Beorn. He grasped her arms, then ducked and lifted her over his shoulders. With a hand at the breast of her tunic and the other at her groin, he hefted her high overhead, and then threw her at three of the men from Iddesleigh.

  Two of them tried to avoid her. The third, braver or more stupid than they, held out his arms as though he meant to catch her, and took the full weight of her on his breast. The breath gushed from him like water from a broken pipe, and he collapsed, crushed, while she swore and cursed Beorn for fondling her, shrieking her rage as she clambered to her feet.

  It was enough. Her words, and the vituperative tone in which they were screamed, made all the other men stop in their tracks and turn to stare at her. Even as Beorn bit his thumb at her, Perkin could see more men and women from Iddesleigh squaring their shoulders and starting to move towards the middle of the field. It was going to end up just as so many other games had.

  But as Beorn turned and faced them all, Perkin had seen his opportunity. Martin from Iddesleigh had the ball, and he and two others were pushing forward against two Monkleigh men, Will and Guy. Hearing the woman, they’d turned and become spectators instead of participants, and in that moment Perkin nipped in under their legs, set his hand atop the bladder, and spun it quickly so that it turned from the holder’s hands.

  Martin turned back to see what had happened in time to meet Guy’s fist coming the other way, and he fell back with a curse, blood pouring from his nose. Perkin was already on his knees as Guy and Will set upon their opponents with gusto. They were equally matched, and as their fight raged, and Beorn hurled abuse at the men approaching him, Perkin kept his head low on his shoulders, wrapped a fold of his shirt over the ball to hide it and make it easier to hold, and set off on the path they’d agreed. It took the rest quite some time to realise that he was escaping.

  Perkin was fast for all his girth, but as he paused to take stock he saw that the others were gaining on him. The dampness wasn’t helping; the ball was slick and difficult to hold when the weather was miserable like this, but he must get the damned thing to the goal, and that quickly. He shot a look heavenwards, grimacing as he saw black clouds coming closer, shivered briefly, and then hared off down the hill again.

  It was a matter of honour that they should succeed here where they’d won the prize so often before. If they were to lose, it would be a dreadful reflection on their manhood. After all, it was four years since the men of Monkleigh had lost a game of camp ball to the men of Iddesleigh, and the idea that today their run of success should come to an end was insupportable.

  Wouldn’t be a surprise, though. There was something about this weather, with the fine drizzle falling like sparks of pure ice, dark clouds overhead, mud everywhere, and sudden scratches from dripping furze and thorns as they pounded on, that took away any confidence.

  Someone had told him that this game had started back in the days when giants had lived here. That was why the field of play spread so widely. Other places, so he’d heard, used a single pasture or maybe a couple of meadows, with the goals set up at either end; not here at Iddesleigh, though. Here the men had to battle their way over a mile of desolate land. The game would range from Furze Down to Whitemoor; that meant two hills, two streams, and a vicious climb uphill to finish, no matter which side had control. Starting with the battle for control of the bladder, followed, invariably, by at least one fight, and culminating in a run of at least half a mile, much of it uphill, it was no surprise that by the end both sides, winners and losers, would be equally knackered. If they were horses, they’d be killed out of kindness.

  ‘Perkin! Perkin!’

  He was startled from his musings by Beorn’s shout. The younger man’s bare legs were like oak trunks covered in dark moss, and his thick black hair lay lank over his brow, almost covering his dark eyes. Perkin had no idea what Beorn’s warning meant, but he took the easiest defence and hurled the ball to him.

  ‘Behind you!’

  Perkin feinted quickly right, then shot off to his left. Someone snagged his shirt, and he felt it rip, but then he was free, and he heard a satisfying grunt and muffled oath as his attacker fell. Looking over his shoulder, Perkin saw that it was Oliver, the smith from Iddesleigh, who sat up now, disgruntled, a scowl marring his square features. Perkin knew him well, and rather liked him when the game wasn’t on, but today he was only glad that he’d escaped the man.

  He was almost through the stream at the bottom of the gully now, and he started the slow clamber up the other side. Beorn was alongside him, and he grinned at Perkin, hurling the bladder back to him. Perkin caught it with a grunt and gave Beorn a baleful glower. The man had to throw the thing so cursed hard! It all but winded him.

  This was the line they’d agreed on: it was steeper, and harder to negotiate, than the usual way, but by coming up here to the hill east of the main flatlands, the men from Monkleigh had slipped round the defending line of Iddesleigh, and although they had set off in pursuit Perkin was already comfortably ahead of even the fleetest of foot. He clutched the bladder under his armpit more tightly and gritted his teeth as the rain began to fall more heavily.

  Up and up, until his thighs were burning and his lungs felt as though they must surely burst. There were rocks and projecting bushes up here, and he was sure that his ankle would snap if he misplaced his step at any point. And then, blessed relief, he was at the top of the steepest part of the climb, and he could pause, staring back down the hill.

  Straggling up towards him were the bulk of his team. Beorn was still nearest, his face bright with sweat and exertion, eyes staring above his beard; behind him were five more men, and Guy and Rannulf were back at the bottom, Rannulf pounding at an Iddesleigh man with his fists while two others looked on. No one would get in Rannulf’s way when he was in that sort of mood.

  Hefting the pig’s bladder in his hands, feeling the weight of all the dried beans inside it, Perkin took a deep breath and began to move towards Whitemoor again. He heard another bellow from Beorn, turned to see what his comrade had seen, and saw a man appear almost in front of him.

  Perkin ducked, but he was too late to bolt. A burly arm went about his waist, a shoulder caught his belly, and his breath left him in a woosh of pain. In the twinkling of an eye he was flying through the air and, as though time was standing still for the better appreciation of his predicament, it seemed for an instant that he was suspended as though by a rope.

  Not for long, though. Directly ahead of him he could see Ailward, about him a flickering scene: yellow furze flowers, green, red, and then a large, grey rock. At the last moment he flung his arms out and then closed his eyes as the heel of his left hand struck the moorstone, which rasped along the soft underside of his wrist until it smacked into the point of his chin, when he suddenly lost all interest in the game as bright pinpricks of light burst in on his vision.

  The bladder was gone, and as he moaned and rolled o
ver, prodding with his tongue at a loosened tooth, he looked up to see his attacker holding the ball. He recognised him now: it was Walter, one of Sir Odo’s blasted men-at-arms. Still, he was older, slower. If Ailward was quick, if he could just hold Walter a moment, then Beorn would be there too, and they could win the ball back. But when he stared at Ailward, his teammate was standing steady, unmoving, his legs apart, his eyes anxious.

  With a careful swing of his arm, Walter brought the bladder back, and then uncoiled like a snake to send the thing soaring high into the sky, to drop down towards the plain, far beyond the men of Monkleigh’s team.

  Perkin closed his eyes again. There was nothing more for him to do.

  Chapter Two

  From the hill at Monkleigh, Isaac watched with his rheumy old eyes narrowed against the weather, mumbling his gums while Humphrey held his cloak about his shoulders, trying as best he could to explain what was happening down on the plain.

  ‘The Monkleigh men are streaming back now. Martin from Iddesleigh has the bladder and is at full pelt. The whole of the Monkleigh team is just behind him, and … and Agnes the fuller’s daughter is there, she’s running at him! Yes, she must capture him … she’s only feet away now, and— Ach! No, he’s slipped round her, a hand in her face, and he’s past. Agnes is down …’

  Isaac had been here for over forty years, so Humphrey had heard, and so far as he could tell, it was a miracle that the man was still alive. No man should have to live in so backward a place as this, not without a significant reward for doing so, in Humphrey’s humble opinion. For him, of course, it was different. He was a coadjutor, here to fulfil the offices which were in fact Isaac’s responsibility, but were beyond his capability now. At over sixty years of age, by Humphrey’s reckoning, the poor old man was deaf in one ear, had a terrible limp from the gout, and was blind at more than twenty paces. Plainly Humphrey could give no credence to anything the senile old man next to him might say; after so many years’ passage, it was a blessing that he could remember even his own name. Certainly his estimate of his own age was nothing more than that: a guess.

  The game was thrilling, though. For Humphrey, who had seen only one before this, it was exciting to see how the men and women slid and slithered in the mud, their enthusiasm waxing and waning with the fortunes of their sides. He should have liked to have joined them, had he been a little younger, but his post was not that of a mere vill’s priest who must throw himself wholeheartedly into every banal activity; rather it was that of a professional adviser and steward of his master’s resources. Except that his master’s mind was so addled now that Humphrey could scarcely interest the man in any of the issues he raised. It was a wonder that no one else had noticed that Isaac was quite unfitted for his duties until Humphrey arrived, but that was apparently the case.

  There were good reasons why no one paid much attention to the decrepitude of the priest. This land was ever filled with enmity. There was the dispute between Sir John Sully’s steward, Sir Odo de Bordeaux, and the repellent brute Sir Geoffrey Servington who managed the neighbouring manor, for a start. It made little sense to Humphrey, and he did not care what lay behind the dispute. All he knew was that there was constant bickering between the two parties, and he could play a useful role in the middle, speaking for one side to the other and vice versa, while maintaining Isaac in his post and helping him to keep up the services at the chapel.

  The fighting was not only about land, of course. There was the age-old matter of lordships. Sir John Sully was a vassal of Lord Hugh de Courtenay, who had reportedly been close to joining the Lords of the Marches in their dispute with the king and his detested advisers, the Despensers. It was only good fortune and his innate common sense which had held him back. And a fortunate thing, too. Too many others who had not heeded sounder counsel were even now dangling from gibbets and spikes at the gates to all the great cities in the land, and the little manor next to Lord Hugh’s, which had been owned by the great general Mortimer before he raised an army against the king was now in the hands of the Despensers. While the Despensers were in the ascendant, Lord Hugh could scarce risk upsetting them, but even so he would not give up parcels of land to them willy-nilly, no matter what they threatened.

  And threaten they would. It was their preferred means of acquiring lands and fortune. They had already broken many, even snatching up widows and holding them to ransom or, to their eternal disgrace and dishonour, torturing the poor women until they gave up their children’s inheritances. These were evil, dangerous thieves, who could and would attack any man who tried to thwart their ambitions.

  While men like the Despensers and their neighbours battled over lands, Humphrey reflected, other men of ambition were left with the potential to take advantage of the situation. There were many about this area with private grudges to settle, and he would not be at all surprised if some of them tried to turn circumstances to their own benefit. Perhaps, in his capacity as coadjutor, he should learn which of the other landowners in the area were seeking to benefit from the disputes.

  ‘Are you enjoying the game, Father?’

  Humphrey turned sharply to find Father Matthew from the church at Iddesleigh standing behind him. There was something about the neighbouring priest which Humphrey had never liked – perhaps it was just that he was suspicious of Humphrey’s lack of formal documentation. Still, there was little the man could do. Isaac was happy with him, and that was all that mattered.

  Isaac muttered, ‘It seems very boisterous today. The lads are … mmm … showing more enthusiasm than they do in church!’

  Matthew chuckled. ‘It is good to see them letting off steam. And when the pigs are killed, at least this means there’s a use for the bladders. Marvellous animal, the pig. Nothing ever goes to waste. I have a brawn cooling even now. The jelly about it is splendid.’

  Isaac pulled a face. ‘If I tried to eat some I’d be unwell for days. I find only a little … mmm … gruel is all I can keep down. Still, Humphrey tries to tempt me with little morsels.’

  ‘Does he?’ Matthew responded, turning and giving Humphrey his full attention again. Unsettling bastard! To change the subject, Humphrey pointed to a man at the side of the hill.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘That grim-faced fellow?’ Matthew said, peering through narrowed eyes. ‘Oh, he’s the man who came here with the woman from Belstone.’

  Isaac drew in his breath and shook his head. ‘No good. No good can come of that.’

  ‘What?’ Humphrey asked. He’d never heard anything about a ‘woman from Belstone’.

  Matthew answered him. ‘She came here some two years ago with this man. He comes and goes, for I think he serves a family in Lydford.’

  ‘She was a nun, and has chosen to deny her vows. She’s evil! Evil!’ Isaac spat. ‘She made her vows, but changed her mind when she grew large with a baby in her belly. They couldn’t keep her in a holy convent, so they threw her out to bounce down here to our door. Now she lives in sin with her man.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Matthew more kindly. ‘I married them. She was allowed to leave because she had been unfairly coerced into making her vows when she was too young. Her oaths were not valid.’

  ‘That is … mmm … no excuse!’ Isaac expostulated, throwing a hand into the air and almost striking Humphrey.

  ‘It is, Father, it is,’ Humphrey said soothingly. ‘Just think, if a young child was taken into a life of celibacy without the ability to understand it was a lifetime’s commitment. Imagine how he would feel when he grew to maturity and saw his terrible mistake. A fellow who could have been content as a saddlemaker, and a good one at that, for ever chained to a service that made no sense to him.’

  ‘Garbage!’

  ‘Humphrey speaks the truth, I’m afraid,’ Matthew said. He did not so much as glance at Humphrey now. Instead he smiled at his old friend. ‘The Pope himself has ruled that men and women who took their vows under a certain age should be allowed to retract their oaths and leave withou
t a stain.’

  ‘If they have sworn to God, they should see to their service and the service of the souls under their protection, not worry about escape. Escape! To a place like this!’

  Perkin grunted as the others entered the tavern and offered him their sympathy, old friends looking down at him with amusement, some wincing to see his wounds, others laughing at them. Only Rannulf stood and surveyed him without comment for a long period, and then said:

  ‘’Twas your fault. You lost it for us.’

  There was an edge of raw fury in his tone which stirred Perkin. He looked up and nodded. ‘I suppose you’d have seen him hiding in the furze there and beaten him?’

  ‘I’d have broken his head for him,’ Rannulf grated. ‘He was in your way. You could have run through him.’

  Perkin shook his head once and looked away. This was the sort of activity Rannulf enjoyed, repeatedly insulting a man until he teased his victim into a fight, and Perkin was having none of it. ‘Go and fetch your ale. I’m not dickering about the details of the game now.’

  ‘No. Wouldn’t want to tire you now you’ve lost our winning run for us,’ Rannulf sneered. ‘You should have got him when you could.’

  ‘Ignore him,’ said Beorn.

  ‘I always do,’ Perkin muttered. His arm was giving him a great deal of pain, and he would prefer to leave the tavern and go to his bed.

  Beorn was one of those men whose hair continued down his neck and over his shoulders. When he went without his shirt during harvest, Perkin had seen how the women would watch him with hungry eyes, staring at his muscled legs, his narrow waist, how his hair travelled down to the crease of his buttocks; but Beorn merely shrugged when he was told. He knew who would be available, and the others didn’t interest him. ‘Ach, there was nothing you could do,’ he said.