A warning flashed in his mind, and he began to turn, but he was already too late. There was a shout, a command, he heard a whirling like a nearby flight of geese, and his head was slammed forward as something smashed against his skull.
He could feel sparks strike at his skull, and as his cheek crashed against the dirt of the yard he smelled the stench of burning hair, rank and disgusting. A second blow, then a third, and his head was a mass of pain. There were cries, but they seemed to come from afar, perhaps on the next hill? In front of him he could see the house, and he knew that if he could reach it, all would be well. He would be safe in there. Constance would come to him and make his head better. He knew that.
There was no strength in his arms or legs. It was only a short distance, made hazy by the smoke and the roaring in his ears. He lifted his head, and he heard a man cry out. A boot kicked his temple, and then his chest, and he lay wide-eyed and unblinking, utterly spent.
He could see the open doorway. At the threshold lay his woman. He saw a man drop to his knees in front of her. There was a muted cry, a sound of grief and terror, and he saw the man finish, rise, kick, spit, laugh, draw a dagger, reach down. All was a whirl. Hugh was sure he ought to do something, but his limbs were another man’s, not his. There was nothing his mind could do to command his body.
A boot thudded into his flank and he rolled to his belly, hiding from the blows. A foot rested on his back. He heard a shout, a scream, saw the babe, Hugh, held by the legs. Mercifully, his eyes closed, and he heard a roar of laughter, then no more screams from Hugh. A punch in his back, another, and this time he felt an odd sensation. It was as though the punch had gone through his back and scraped a rib.
Hugh could smell smoke, and he felt warmed. He had left the field to come home, and he must have fallen asleep as soon as he got here. The fire was lighted: he could feel the hot breath at his face. It glowed at his eyelids, and he snuggled further down into his bed. It was a lovely bed, soft and yielding, and surely Constance would soon be here with him, her soft body joining with his.
It was a dream. She was a dream to him, and he smiled in what he thought must be his sleep as he felt himself sliding away, as though he was slipping sideways into the darkness of the soil itself as unconsciousness enfolded him.
Friar John was footsore, irritable, and not in the mood for another night out in the cold. He’d already covered too many miles since he’d fallen out with the prior in Exeter, and here he was still wandering about the countryside wondering whether he had made the right decision in leaving Exeter when he had, let alone in coming this way. It had smacked a little of hypocrisy to fly from the city in such a hurry, without taking time to consider.
Still, he had caught his prior in a lie, and one which could lead to others being harmed, if not killed. No, he hadn’t had a choice at the time. It was a shame, though. He’d enjoyed a good reputation there in Exeter. All who met him reckoned that he was the best fund-raiser the Order had seen.
A shod friar, a Dominican, John was one of those who had given up all his worldly wealth … not that he had possessed much when he’d first walked to the friary and offered himself. Then he’d been a narrow-shouldered, skinny, rather feeble assistant to a cutler, who had hoped to earn a place as a man of importance in his adopted city of Winchester.
He had had so little good fortune in his life, he thought now. He was the third son of Sir George, a minor knight from the Welsh marches, and knowing he would make a dreadful priest he had early on chosen a life of trade and gone to Winchester. There, when he grew older, he had encountered some of the pitfalls which awaited so many young apprentices in life: a night’s debauchery, cross words with his master, an evening frolicking with a maid in a tavern of low reputation, more cross words with his master, and then a blazing row when the maid was discovered in his narrow cot a couple of days later.
Suddenly he was an outcast, adrift in the great city, taking a succession of little jobs that paid him swiftly so that he had something to take and spend in a tavern. The maid disappeared: he had heard that she had later eloped with his master’s own son.
During that lonely period he had learned all about the pleasures of life, and almost as speedily discarded them as worthless. Women he could enjoy, ale and wine would delight, but all were sour in the mouth the next morning. Especially the women who demanded money as he tried to leave their chambers. None seemed to remember that they’d wanted him the night before as much as he’d told himself he wanted them. Or, to be more truthful, and John tried always to be truthful, perhaps it was the ale and wine which told him that they seemed to desire him.
Whatever the truth of it, after a year of splendid excess, he had nothing. There was no job, all the women knew he had nothing to give them, and while he had a need for wine in the morning, there was no means to pay for it. And one morning, while resting his back against a merchant’s house, hoping for alms, he saw a friar. The man was dressed in a grubby robe like his own, without sandals on his feet, and held only a bowl, which he proffered optimistically whenever he caught someone’s eye.
‘Good day, master,’ he said to John. It was the first kindly greeting John had heard in many a long day. When the friar shuffled off, John found himself trailing in his wake.
It was in the priory that he discovered his true vocation: not to wander about the countryside begging for himself, but to earn alms for the good of all. And he was good, very good. In a city John could bring the money from every man’s purse, it seemed, almost with a whistle. In a world in which most friars were educated men, with serious expressions and the look of fellows who should have been rather above this position in life, but were prepared to suffer a little now for their advancement later, like a squire who is first taught how to clear out the stable in the hope that one day he’ll understand enough to be a knight.
John, though – he was different, and he knew it. Most Dominicans were keen to amass their alms as quickly as possible, then buy some bread and go and preach, find a place to rest the night, and prepare for the next day’s begging and preaching. Not John. He had always been a sharp lad, quick with a flattering word, and when he stood by and listened to some of his colleagues preach it made him want to wince. There was no passion, no fire. All they could manage was an injunction to remember the friars (among others) in their prayers, with maybe a hopeful wave of their bowls afterwards.
No good, Christ in Heaven, no! Christ wanted to save souls, and looking amiably foolish with a bowl in your hand might win a hunk of bread and some pottage of an evening, but it wasn’t going to maintain a single ecclesiastical establishment. So John had set out to win over richer men without issue: the lonely and sad, the bereaved and desperate, promising them preferential honours in the afterlife, provided that they gave over their wealth to the friary in the here and now.
Of course it had worked. It had been so successful that in Exeter, where he had ended up, he had caused a certain amount of friction between the friary and the cathedral. Still, that was all in his past now. He had left when he saw some of the corruption of the city, and he was well out of it.
It had been shortly after he had joined the priory that he had heard from his mother that his older brothers were both dead, killed in the wars that ran up and down the marches at all times. The Welsh were a froward, cunning foe, and his brothers had been tricked into a narrow valley by the offer of treasure before being slaughtered by Welsh arrows. Ach, the Welsh were ever cowards. They wouldn’t stand and fight.
By then, it was too late to tempt him home. His life had the purpose it had lacked before, and he was content. The manor would go to his remaining sibling, a sister. At least the estates would make for a good dowry when she was married.
His reflections were cut short by a pebble. He was wearing boots which a kind donor had given him, but the thin leather was little protection against the ragged stones. The soles of his feet were cracked and throbbing, and every so often he would stub a toe on a lump of moorstone or semi-
frozen mud, which would give him a stab of exquisite pain.
It was as he leaned on his old staff with his face twisted, having managed to do this yet again and stemming the tide of curses only with an effort of will, that he saw the light up ahead.
There were many places out here where a man should be cautious, but even the most devil-may-care felon would think twice before harming a friar. In the first place a friar was useful because he might take a man’s confession and shrive him; in the second, he had no possessions. There was no point in trying to rob him.
Still, thieves were not the only threat to a man in the darkness. A law-abiding farmer could be as dangerous if he thought that a dark figure in the shadows was possibly a man come to ravish a wife or daughter. Many out in assarts miles from any neighbours would strike first and ask questions later if practicable. John had little desire to court any more grief than he already endured, so he peered ahead, his narrow face screwed into an expression of intense concentration, while his sharp eyes gazed from under his beetling brows. There were no signs of dancing shapes, no screaming or shouting thieves, only a warm glow amidst the trees, and overhead, now he glanced upwards, a thick pall of black smoke. Occasionally a shower of glinting sparks would rise in a rush, only to disappear.
John gripped his staff and started to make his way towards the blaze. The hour was late for a fire in the woods. People tended to douse the flames so that the trees were protected from stray sparks. Even now, when winter had not yet given way to spring, there was still the threat of wholesale conflagration if men were careless, and men were rarely careless.
It was a good half-mile to the fire, and he had plenty of opportunity to survey the area on his way.
He had come from Upcott towards a place he was told was called Whitemoor, in the hope that the tavern at Iddesleigh might offer him a space on the floor for the night. The fire appeared to be close to the vill itself, set away from the path by a short distance, and he approached it slowly and reluctantly, his staff tapping on the ground firmly with every step he took, until he reached the burning buildings and saw the bodies lying all about: chickens, a dog, cats, and then, last of all, the body of a man.
‘Sweet Mother of Christ,’ he breathed.
Chapter Five
As he stood at the door to his cottage, Pagan could see the men moving about at the big house, and he felt himself slump wearily at the sight.
That house had lots of fond memories for him. It had been the place where he had grown; his father had been the armourer to good Squire William, and when the squire rode to war in Ireland with his lord, Pagan’s father had ridden with him. A lord’s host needed men who could wield a hammer or an axe. The old man had died there when they reached Kells. There the Scots persuaded the despicable de Lacys to turn their shields and become traitors to Mortimer, their master – Squire William’s master. Kells fell and there was a terrible slaughter.
Squire William too died that day, and the family which Pagan had served so long had been thrown into turmoil. It was all very well for William’s son, Squire Robert, to be born to a title, but without money a title was worthless. And the family had nothing. Pagan had remained to serve Squire Robert because he could imagine no other function, and all he could do was act as steward to the people he knew so well and hope that their fortunes might change.
As they had – but not in the way he had hoped. With the death of Squire Robert at Bridgnorth, still fighting on the side of his master, Lord Mortimer, there was little the family could do to defend itself. Robert had died in the service of a rebel, and the king’s rage at such people knew no bounds. Whole families were punished for their heads’ loyal service to their lords; bodies still hung on gibbets even now, years afterwards, and the king’s own advisers, the Despensers, saw that they could seize the advantage. They cheated, they stole and they killed to take what they wanted.
That was when the family lost their house. Squire Robert’s widow, Isabel, was forced out by that thief, that deceiver, that disgrace to chivalry, Hugh Despenser. He took everything, leaving them only a hovel in which to live. It was fortunate that Pagan still had his own cottage, for there was hardly space in hers for the squire’s widow, her son Ailward and her daughter-in-law, Ailward’s wife. Only Sir Odo had tried to help, riding over occasionally from Fishleigh to visit her. Not that Pagan would stay when Sir Odo was there. He knew why Sir Odo wanted to see the widow, and it wouldn’t be seemly for Pagan to be there to watch.
Yes, from up here he could see what Despenser’s lackeys were up to. Last afternoon they had ridden off to the west, returning only late, after dark, and Pagan knew what they had been doing. Everyone knew. All had heard of the attack on the poor sergeant of Sir Odo’s over towards the ford.
Someone must stop them.
Sir Odo was a man who liked routine. Each morning he would rise with the dawn, and call for his horse while he drank weak ale and ate a hunk of bread broken from a good white loaf. By the time he’d finished, the stable boys should have finished preparing his old grey rounsey, and he would walk out to take his early morning ride round his estate.
Today he stood in the doorway and snuffed the air while he pulled on heavy gloves; a middle-aged man of only some five and a half feet tall, he made up for lack of height by his breadth. In his youth he had been a keen wrestler, and he had maintained his bulk over the years: his neck was almost the same diameter as his skull, and his biceps were fully larger than most men’s thighs.
His temper was foul today. The grief that had afflicted Lady Isabel on hearing of the loss of her son had naturally affected the manner in which she dealt with everyone else. Sir Odo felt that grief keenly. He was a long-standing friend of Lady Isabel, and to see so noble a lady reduced by the death of her only child was dreadful.
He sniffed and closed his eyes. Seeing a lad of only five or six and twenty die was always sad, but this case was worse than most. Sir Odo had thought that Ailward would shortly be finding his place in the world, that he might recover a little of the family’s fortune, but instead he had been struck down by a murderer. Perhaps a killing committed after too many drinks, or a falling out with a stranger, or a local peasant with a grudge against the man who ordered who should work when, and for how much. There were so many men who could have a reason to kill a sergeant.
There was an icy chill in the wind that came from the north and east. It was always easy to tell when snow was threatening, because the wind seemed to come straight at the house, along the line of the Torridge River, and today was no exception. Sir Odo wasn’t fooled by the clear sky and bright sunshine. If he was any judge of the weather here, there would be snow before long.
He crossed the yard to his mount and used a block of stone to help himself up. Ever since he’d been stuck in his thigh by a man-at-arms with a polearm, he’d had this weakness. It was all right when he was up in the saddle, because then he seemed able to grip well enough, but the ability to straighten his leg to spring up was almost entirely lost.
It had been a little skirmish, really. Not a real battle at all. A lowly squire, he’d been fighting for Hugh de Courtenay in the last king’s wars against the Scottish. They’d reached the Solway Firth, and had laid siege to Caerlaverock Castle at the turn of the century. Now it seemed such a stupid thing, but at the time … he had been near the oddly shaped triangular castle when there was a shout that the Scotch murderers were about to make a sally, and he saw the great drawbridge lowered. Immediately, he ran forward with a few others, and reached it as the defenders were starting to make their way from the gatehouse.
Odo felt that old thrill, the excitement of battle, as he sank his blade into a man’s throat and saw him thrash for a moment before tumbling down, choking. Four more fell to him during that short action, though there were no more deaths. A small fight, almost negligible. Probably most of the other men there that day had forgotten it, but not Odo.
The men with him kept up a great roaring shout, and with sheer effort they managed t
o force the enemy back towards the sandstone gatehouse. Odo’s opponent stumbled and fell, and suddenly Odo realised that they could push into the castle itself. He slashed at the man’s face twice, then turned and roared to the men at the siege camp to join them, and at the same instant felt something slam into his leg. It was a shocking sensation, and the effect was to knock his knee away, so that he collapsed.
After that his battle grew confusing. He had flashes of memory: not because of pain – there was none – but because he was desperate to climb to his feet, to escape before he could be hacked to pieces. A man on the ground would be as likely to be attacked by the men of his own side as his enemy; a fellow on the ground could be preparing to thrust up with a weapon at the unprotected underside of the men battling above him, and there was little opportunity to distinguish friend from foe. Yet he couldn’t stand. He panicked, overwhelmed with terror as he recognised his danger: he was defenceless here in the mêlée. Trying to crawl away, he was stunned as a crashing blow caught his head, and he felt his skull shake as he fell forward, blood washing over his eyes. He was convinced that he was about to die, and began a prayer begging forgiveness for his sins (which he freely confessed were legion), which was cut short by his passing out.
Later, he awoke to find himself being cleaned by a squire. He was lying on a rich bed, a real bed, with soft woollen blankets and marvellous silken hangings.
He coughed, then rasped, ‘Have I died?’
‘I hope not. He’ll have my guts for his laces if you have,’ the squire said drily. ‘How’s your head?’
The squire looked ancient to Odo. He must have been in his forties – couldn’t remember his name now – and must have realised how confused Odo was, because he refused to discuss anything with him until he’d rested.
A Friar's Bloodfeud: (Knights Templar 20) Page 5