The Mad Monk of Gidleigh

by Michael Jecks

  It was just as dark was settling over the land that horses arrived at the inn’s yard. Soon there was shouting, then a scurrying of feet, and marching boots approached through the screens.

  ‘I’m glad to find you awake still. I had thought you might be abed,’ Sir Ralph said, glancing about him with the distaste plain on his face as he entered with Esmon. Brian and another man lounged by the door, watching the people in the room with attentive insolence. The landlord was clearing away dishes and platters. ‘You have eaten?’

  ‘Oh, but yes, I thank you,’ Baldwin said with effusive sarcasm. ‘The host here is most welcoming and attentive.’

  Esmon glanced about the room. His eyes settled on Roger Scut sitting in a corner, a short way from this knight. Good. Roger had eaten with him at the castle, and afterwards Esmon and he had both agreed that it was probably better that their discussion should not become common knowledge until they were ready for it.

  Sir Ralph waved at the innkeeper, who scuttled over anxiously to take his order for wine, then hurried away like a harvest mouse on an urgent mission for a farm cat, desperate to give no possible reason for complaint.

  ‘I hadn’t realised my own board was so meagre,’ Sir Ralph said, pointedly staring at the plates before Roger Scut. ‘You appeared to eat your fill in my hall.’

  ‘I merely desired a light meal to settle my stomach,’ Scut protested. ‘Your food was excellent, my Lord.’

  ‘You have already eaten?’ Baldwin exclaimed. To his mind, gluttony was one of the worst of the sins.

  ‘Perhaps my food was not to his taste. I believe it could be thought too rich,’ Sir Ralph said. Looking up, he saw that Baldwin was considering him as he sat a short distance from the table. Sir Baldwin, he saw, glanced at the gap between Sir Ralph’s lap and the table. Distance was important. Any knight who was in a situation in which there could be danger always left a short space between himself and the table, if only to make sure of room to draw a sword.

  Sir Baldwin was obviously a fighter. He knew the signs that showed another man was on his mettle; and was also proud. Sir Ralph was sure of that. His words that afternoon had confirmed that fact. No mere rural man-at-arms with a long lineage and limited funds, Sir Baldwin saw himself as an important magnate. It was good that he knew Sir Ralph was allied with the Despensers. It didn’t mean Sir Ralph was entirely above the law, but it showed that in this vill he could rule with impunity. He chose to do so with an iron will, and the innkeeper’s speed was proof of that. Seeing the man respond like this to his Lord would demonstrate to Baldwin the sort of power Sir Ralph possessed here.

  He could have sighed. None of it mattered now. Not since Mary’s death. Mary! Even the thought of her was enough to bring a sob to his breast. No, he mustn’t submit to his misery. He must set aside all thoughts of grief and get on with his job here, talking to this dunderhead knight who had such a high opinion of himself.

  There were rumours about Sir Baldwin. Sir Ralph had heard of him before. Tales of his intelligence abounded, most of them implying that Sir Baldwin was a cross between a saint and an alchemist who possessed the power to divine a man’s soul. It was enough to make Sir Ralph nervous. He had no wish to lose his son.

  Esmon was a fool! Why get that cretin Sampson involved? His son had been absorbed on their ride here, tied up with his thoughts. It took some prodding for Sir Ralph to get him to admit what he had done, as though he had no respect for his father, and when Sir Ralph had heard his story, that he had told Sampson to move the body, the knight had almost knocked him from his horse for his stupidity. What good moving Wylkyn would do was beyond Sir Ralph: the body might as well have lain there. Moving it now would only attract still more interest. At least Wylkyn was dead now, that was the main thing; he had been punished for his crime.

  Sir Ralph felt heavy and tired, as though he had run a long race only to lose. Esmon had done the right thing in killing Wylkyn. They had agreed on that an age ago. But this action was different. It would have been better to use one of his own men. Esmon explained that this way, if someone was suspected, the finger would likely point to Sampson. He would be certain to make a mistake, and then people would assume he was the killer, not Esmon. At least Esmon was certain that no one had seen him kill Wylkyn, and without a body, he should remain safe.

  It was worrying, though, that his son only admitted what he had done when pressed. Sir Ralph was suddenly struck with the thought that Esmon didn’t trust him any more. It was no surprise; since Mary’s death, he felt as though he was walking in a continuing dream. Still, he must impose his will on Esmon, he thought. If only he could simply leave and go to his bed, he thought distractedly. He was so tired.

  The innkeeper was back. Sir Ralph stopped the man before he could pour wine into a cup, peered into it himself, winced, and then shrugged. It was hardly worth worrying about a little dirt in the cup, when he was exposing himself to the filth in this tavern. It was well known that bad air could kill a man, and this place must have some of the worst in the vill.

  Concentrate! He sipped at his wine, watching Sir Baldwin coolly, feeling a little like a dog preparing to enter the ring to fight another. There was some shrewdness there in Sir Baldwin’s eyes, and he certainly held himself like a knight who practised with his weapons. His belly was quite flat, he bore no second chin, and his hands moved with that calm precision that only efficient martial artists displayed. Yes, Sir Baldwin would be an efficient killer, Sir Ralph reckoned. A worthy foe. Esmon could sense it too; Sir Ralph could feel his tension where he stood behind Sir Ralph watching and listening.

  The others were nothing. There was the grim-faced man whom Baldwin introduced as the Bailiff of Lydford, a Stannary official, and next to him a servant, while there were two scruffy peasants with weapons as well; watchmen, no doubt, sent to watch over the priest. Mark would hardly need more to guard him. The feebleminded cretin was practically in his grave already. Before long he would be, if Sir Ralph had his way.

  Sir Baldwin had not commented, and now Sir Ralph spoke again.

  ‘I desired to apologise to you for my hurry when you arrived at my door, Sir Baldwin. I should have come here with you to make sure that you found the place. I hope you do not mind that I could not drop everything at the moment you turned up?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I trust you found your way here without mishap?’

  ‘Yes, I thank you. It is an easy road, and Simon and I have travelled this way often enough before.’

  ‘Good. Then I hope you will be able to find your way home again before long.’

  ‘Not very soon, though,’ Simon interrupted. His face was partly shadowed, giving him an evil, demonic look. ‘We have these deaths to hear about first.’

  ‘Deaths?’ Sir Ralph enquired impassively.

  It was the other knight who answered. ‘You have had the Coroner here about the girl, I understand?’

  ‘He held his inquest and had his records written down, but there was little need. Mark had bolted, so he was obviously the culprit. We had raised the Hue and Cry, so that was really that.’

  ‘The day that the girl died – who was the First Finder?’

  ‘An older peasant called Elias.’

  ‘But she had been dead some time when he found her?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Was there anyone else up that road on that day?’ Simon asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Sir Ralph said stiffly. ‘You should ask Elias and see what he thinks.’

  ‘We will,’ Simon promised him.

  ‘You have not heard that anyone else travelled that road who saw her – either when she was alive, or when she had died?’ Baldwin pressed.

  ‘If someone had, wouldn’t they have reported the find as First Finder?’

  Baldwin smiled without speaking, but Simon leaned on an elbow and picked at a tooth. ‘Did someone else?’

  ‘Sampson came up later and reported that she was dead, but he probably couldn’t understan
d that someone had already found her. He’s the local fool, I’m afraid. His brains were missing from birth, and he’s a figure of ridicule now. He lives out near the moors, if you want to speak to him. Many folks here will be able to show you where, if you wish.’

  ‘But you don’t think we’d achieve much by talking to him,’ Simon stated.

  ‘If there was anything to be learned, I am sure that the Coroner would have learned it.’

  ‘Where were you on the day that the girl died?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘Me? I was out hunting, and later, at home again, I heard about this girl’s murder. I instantly called up a small posse and rode off after that damned priest.’

  ‘Where did you go hunting?’

  ‘Around the vill. I didn’t go over the Chase of Dartmoor, if that’s what you mean,’ Sir Ralph added drily. ‘I wouldn’t trespass on the King’s lands like that. His venison is safe here.’

  ‘You believe so? Where was your son on the day this girl died?’

  Sir Ralph stiffened a fraction. This was the question he had feared. ‘Esmon was with me. I rode back with him from the hunt. He didn’t rush away to commit murder, I assure you!’

  Simon glanced at Esmon. ‘You confirm that?’

  ‘We were together, yes.’

  ‘What about the day that the miner got himself killed? Where were you then?’

  Sir Ralph interrupted. ‘Is this an inquest? I only ask, because I find your questions are growing impertinent, Bailiff.’

  Baldwin shot a look at Simon, then continued for him, ‘But you will understand, Sir Ralph, that we have a duty to look into this man’s death. Do you know anything about it?’

  Sir Ralph looked from Simon to Baldwin. ‘No.’

  Simon looked at Esmon, who shrugged.

  ‘Well? A man died, did he? What of it? I saw many men die during the wars.’

  ‘Were you on the moors when he died?’

  ‘It is true enough that my son spoke with some merchants who were disrespectful and refused to pay his legitimate tolls. That is all, though. I am sure no man was killed,’ Sir Ralph said.

  ‘The body of a man called Wylkyn lies up on the moors,’ Simon grated. ‘That is why I was called here.’

  ‘Does it affect us?’ Sir Ralph asked, feigning disinterest.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Simon said suavely. ‘Perhaps if you let your son answer, I’ll find out!’

  ‘Wylkyn used to be steward to the castle, to Sir Richard Prouse,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘He wasn’t when I took over the castle.’

  ‘No, he left as soon as Sir Richard died, I was told,’ Simon said.

  Sir Ralph shrugged.

  ‘It seems odd that he should bolt from the place as you take the castle, and then appear dead on the moors.’

  ‘Ah, well. People are superstitious on the moors. Perhaps there was an argument, and a passerby thought that murder had been done? I am sure you will find that there’s no body up there,’ Sir Ralph chuckled.

  He glanced at Sir Baldwin, and the two men locked eyes for some moments. It didn’t matter. Sir Ralph knew he was speaking the truth.

  Shivering, his teeth chattering, Mark spent a terrible evening in the cell. It was a dank, foul-smelling hole deep underneath a stable, with rock-lined walls that dripped steadily with water and with liquid excrement and urine from the horses above. Whether it was intended that the gutter should run into this little sewer, he couldn’t tell, nor did he care. He daren’t lie in the half-inch or so of moisture, so he must stand. That was all he knew.

  The cold was deadly. He slapped his hands against his shoulders, trying to invigorate them, but it did no good. It was as though they were already turned to ice. Hitting them hurt his palms; it was like thumping slabs of wood.

  There was no light. That was shut out by the solid trap door above his head. When he had been dropped in here, he had caught a fleeting glimpse of his cell: small, square and foul. Less than six feet wide and broad, and maybe seven deep. He huddled in a corner, listening to laughter and shouting above his head, and suddenly tears sprang forth. All he wanted was human contact, the companionship that a man needed, but he could hope for nothing. He wanted to pray as well, but couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come; the idea of offering a prayer to God from this hole was somehow disrespectful.

  When he heard vague splashing at the far end of the cell he told himself that it was the dripping of water from above, perhaps a horse had defecated, and not the pattering of tiny paws. It was all too easy to imagine ranks of rats watching him, waiting for him to lie down and sleep so that they could attack him. If he could have found a stone or pebble, he would have hurled it, but there was nothing that he could feel with his feet in the filth, not that his feet would necessarily have detected anything, so cold were they.

  A shudder ran through his frame and he had to control an urge to sob. He felt desolate, lonely and forlorn, and fear was making his bowels loosen. Terrible to think that he could beshit himself through terror. That was not something he’d have thought of when he was sent here, that he’d be in such fear of his life that he could soil himself.

  He had hoped that the friendly cleric, Roger Scut, who had vowed to protect Mark from all enemies and persuaded that Keeper, Sir Baldwin, to come back with them, might have kept up a conversation with him on the ride back here, but of course it wasn’t fair to expect that. Roger was supposed to be preventing a miscarriage of justice, making sure that Mark was saved from the rigours of the local court and instead was appealed before the Bishop’s own, thus he had maintained a dignified silence.

  God, but it was so cold. All the long hours of his escape, he had never once had the chance to warm himself, and since capture, he had been able to spend only a few moments in front of the fire in the inn at Crediton before they whisked him away on the long ride back here. Even when they had been forced to resort to an alehouse because the river was in spate after the rains, they had seated Mark near the door, far from the fireside. He was a suspected felon: he didn’t deserve comforts.

  There was a rattling and when he looked up, a few stray pieces of damp stuff fell from the trap door and into his face. Coughing with revulsion, spitting bits of straw, he looked up in time to see that a ladder was being lowered and his heart suddenly felt as though it might burst with joy. Someone was going to let him out of here! Someone had taken pity on him! He was about to be saved and given food, drink, a place near a fire! Oh, my God! Flames, heat, warmth! He couldn’t stop the loud sobs that racked his breast, and he grabbed at the ladder, clambering up it as quickly as his frozen fingers and toes would permit.

  At the top, he was already babbling his thanks when he was blinded by the light from a torch. Covering his face, he squinted about him. ‘My Lord, I am so thankful… That place… Might I beg a little warmed wine? My mouth… I am so famished…’

  Without warning, a fist slammed into his kidneys, and he gasped as he went down, his head striking the cobbles with a hammer blow. A boot kicked at his back, then his neck, and he curled into a ball while feet pounded into his already frail body.

  ‘Think you’re going to escape, priest? No one wants that!’

  He recognised that laughing voice: Esmon, the son of Sir Ralph. There was yet another kick at his arse, catching his cods and making him whimper.

  ‘You thought you were going to get away, didn’t you, priest? Thought you’d get to Exeter. Perhaps you thought you’d be safe if you brought your friends here, that you’d be allowed to get to the Bishop’s palace if they spoke for you in court? Well, we aren’t having that, little priest. You aren’t going anywhere. You will die right here, whether today or tomorrow, I don’t care, but you’re dying here.’

  Only one glimpse did he catch of the men. There, at the front of them, watching while Esmon beat him, Mark saw Sir Ralph, his face twisted with hatred.

  ‘Father,’ Mark said, but no one listened, and no one cared as he screamed, cradling his head in his arms as the boots and fists ham
mered into his soft and unprotected body.

  Least of all Sir Ralph.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Baldwin and Simon were up early the next morning, demanding that Piers come and take them to Wylkyn’s body. To Hugh’s disgust, he was ordered to leave his warm bench and follow his master as soon as Piers arrived, while Baldwin’s two watchmen were permitted to remain in the tavern’s cosy hall. They asked Piers to join them while they completed their breakfast, and he sat a short way from the table. Roger Scut was with them, eating quietly and watching them all suspiciously. He was still bitter that the chapel had been fired.

  ‘You want some meat or bread?’ Baldwin enquired.

  ‘No, thank you, Sir Baldwin,’ Piers said. ‘I’ve eaten already.’

  ‘Some of us eat even when we’ve already taken our meals,’ Simon observed, glancing sidelong at Roger Scut.

  ‘I have not!’ Roger said, flushing angrily. ‘I have only just woken!’

  ‘You had a meal here with us last night when you had dined earlier with Sir Ralph, didn’t you?’ Simon accused.

  Roger Scut chose the safest approach of saying nothing.

  Baldwin studied him thoughtfully. ‘Tell me, Scut – what was it like there in the castle?’

  ‘A sumptuous meal,’ Roger Scut said, ‘served by attentive and thoughtful servants. Any who were slapdash risked a thrashing, so all were careful. I didn’t like the Grace being said after eating, though. I prefer to hear it said beforehand.’

  ‘I don’t care when he says Grace, and I don’t care how attractive the food was, how careful the servants, nor how elegant the surroundings,’ Baldwin said irritably. ‘I meant, did you see any signs which showed why we weren’t allowed into the castle?’

  ‘Nothing. The place was neat and tidy, and his carts were all moved out of the way.’

  ‘So! You’re the Reeve?’ Simon asked. ‘Do you know why my friend was rudely refused permission to enter the castle?’

  Piers shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Oh, Master, the ways of great knights are beyond me. I’m only a simple peasant.’