A Friar's Bloodfeud: (Knights Templar 20)

by Michael Jecks

  The worst of it was not Emma’s blundering clumsiness in her language, nor the apparent pleasure she took in denigrating Baldwin, a man whom Jeanne was sure Emma had never liked, but more the disloyal feeling in Jeanne’s own breast that her husband really should have declared on which side his interests lay. There were so many men for whom life under the present rule was all but intolerable. The Despensers were notoriously and aggressively acquisitive. They could not see or hear of another man’s wealth without attempting to steal it.

  No, Jeanne would hate to think that her Baldwin could join the king and the Despensers and fight for them. Only recently the Lord Mortimer had escaped from the Tower in London, and made his way overseas somehow, if the rumours were true. Baldwin had been told by another judge at the Court of Gaol Delivery that Mortimer was in French territory. His liberty had to be a massive concern for the Despensers because they knew Mortimer was the only one of their enemies left with extensive military experience. If he returned to Britain, Baldwin said, he could pose a threat to them, and maybe even the king himself.

  ‘Are you well?’ Baldwin asked.

  She smiled at his solicitous tone. ‘Do not try to change the subject. You know that I was worried about you because if you were to have a fall you might not be found for an age. If you have to go riding, could you not take a man with you?’

  ‘My love, I was only going for a canter around your lands.’ Baldwin sighed. ‘I have ridden in more dangerous locations, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but a wounded man who falls can die all too easily. You should be resting, husband!’

  He groaned. ‘I need to be fit, woman! I have to get myself ready again …’

  ‘For what? Do you think that if the king was to send his host to Scotland again, he’d order all the oldest knights to join him?’

  ‘I don’t think I’m quite his oldest,’ Baldwin protested.

  ‘Perhaps not quite,’ she agreed.

  ‘I’m good enough for some activities still,’ he persisted.

  As they had spoken, they had left the stables, and now they stood before the little manor. ‘Do not think to get round me like that!’ she scolded him.

  ‘If you won’t stop your nagging,’ he said firmly, stepping forward until her back was against the wall of the manor, ‘I shall have to see how I may silence you.’

  ‘You won’t stop me by frivolous diversions. I want you to rest more.’

  ‘Don’t avert your face, woman,’ he growled, mock-aggressively, putting a hand to her throat and turning her face towards him with his thumb.

  ‘Mistress?’

  Baldwin stared deeply into his wife’s widely innocent eyes. ‘I swear I’ll murder that …’

  ‘We’re here, Emma!’ Jeanne called happily, slipping under his arm and away. ‘What is it?’

  Emma looked from one to the other with a scowl of distaste on her face. ‘There’s a message for the master. Sir Baldwin, I think you should come and see this wretch.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Baldwin demanded, furious to have missed an opportunity for dalliance with his wife, but pleased that at least Jeanne could not return to her attack about his resting.

  ‘Sir Baldwin! It’s me, sir, Wat. I have an urgent message from Edgar!’

  Chapter Eight

  Robert Crokers had needed all the Sunday and Monday just to clear the mess from his house. The fire had taken all his belongings with it, and the building was a blackened shell that stank of tar and soot, but with the help of the man whom Sir Odo had brought it was soon cleared out, and the rubbish taken to his little midden.

  The worst of the burned rafters had been pulled down, apart from one which wouldn’t break apart, and that they had left, assuming that if the weight of three men dangling from it wouldn’t move it, neither would some straw thatching. They’d swept and brushed the walls and floor until the stench of burning was all but gone, and meanwhile others had thrown poles up over the roof to create a ridge, to which they nailed long, thin planks. Before long, straw brought from Sir Odo’s storehouse had been thrown haphazardly on top, and today two of the men from the vill who were best at thatching came to finish the job, complaining all the while that the men should have waited for them to arrive.

  ‘It’d have been easier if those useless turds had laid the straw more carefully.’

  ‘Ah. If they had more than shit for brains, they’d be dangerous,’ his friend commented, chewing a straw.

  Still, by the middle of the third day, the Tuesday, the house was almost renewed. There was a roof, and Robert had a palliasse laid out on a low, rough bed. His hearth was soon lighted, and for lunch he was able to set his pot over the fire and make his own pottage from the peas and leaves which Odo’s men had left for him.

  ‘Should be all right now,’ said Walter. He was a cadaverously thin man, one of Sir Odo’s older men-at-arms, who squatted beside the fire and held his gnarled hands to it appreciatively. ‘The roof is safe enough.’

  ‘What if they come back, though?’ Robert said. ‘Here I’m an easy target for them.’

  Walter sniffed, his sunburned face the colour of old chestnut. His eyes were almost hidden beneath his thick brows, and he shot a look at Robert, then hawked and spat into the fire. ‘They’re not after you personally. Just the land. Anyway, I doubt whether they’ll be back here for a while.’

  ‘Why? How can you be so sure?’

  ‘They’ve left a message. They wanted Sir Odo to know they want this land, and they’ll gradually try to increase the pressure on him to give it up and leave all the land this side of the river to them.’

  ‘So they could return at any time?’ Robert squeaked.

  ‘No. Now they’ve sent the warning, they’ll start to use the courts. This was just to stop anyone arguing and making the lawyers’ fees too high. That’s all.’

  ‘But Sir Odo can’t give up the land – it’s not his. What then?’

  ‘They may come back and threaten war, but you should be safe enough. Why’d they hurt you? You’re nothing to them. No, if they wanted to do some damage, fine, they’d come here and warn you off, then fire the house. Meanwhile they’d be doing all they could to force Sir Odo, and through him Sir John Sully, off this land. If they could, they’d get the rest of the manor too. They like land.’

  ‘How could an honourable knight behave like that, though?’ Robert demanded. ‘Surely Sir Geoffrey is a true knight?’

  Walter gave him a look in which surprise and contempt were equally mixed. ‘Of course he is. And all he’s doing is what a true knight should: following his master’s bidding.’

  Robert nodded. He knew nothing of the ways of fighting men. All he really knew was sheep and sheepdogs.

  And now he had neither, he reminded himself as the tears threatened to engulf him again.

  When she had first met Wat, Jeanne had been unimpressed by the round-faced boy with the shock of unruly hair and the vacant expression. Although, to be fair, perhaps her opinion of him was coloured slightly by the lad’s behaviour on her wedding day, when he drank so much of the strong ale beforehand that as the wedding party left the church door, all guffawed at the fellow who was propped like a sack of swedes at a wagon’s wheel. Even as he tried to squint at the crowd, he started to slip down, and only Simon’s servant, Hugh, saved him from complete collapse.

  Now, though, he had grown into a man with enough good looks to tempt any of the maids in the vill to take a tumble with him in a hayrick, were he to ask them. Jeanne could see her dairy maid loitering at the house’s corner, and, seeing how the girl took a deep breath and bent her back slightly as he noticed her, she was sure that it was time to worry about the arrival of an irate parent demanding compensation for the arrival of a fresh bastard in his family. She would have to speak to Baldwin before things got out of hand – but then she noticed that although Wat gave the girl an appreciative leer his expression was serious, even sad, when he looked at his master. There were more important matters on his mind.

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nbsp; Baldwin had not yet cast a glance at Wat, but he too saw the girl, and snapped, ‘Wat, take your eyes off her and stop drooling. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Sir Baldwin, it was a messenger came to Edgar, thinking to find you. A lad from Iddesleigh. He’d ridden as soon as the news came, so he said.’

  ‘What news?’

  Jeanne could feel her man tense, as though he reckoned that this could be the call to war.

  Wat lowered his eyes. ‘There’s been an attack on a smallholding. Hugh’s.’

  ‘You mean Simon’s servant?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It sounds like Hugh’s dead, and his woman with him. Men rode in at night and fired the place.’

  Baldwin was strangely still. Jeanne could feel the energy rushing through his veins, and she tightened her grip on his arm, as though by so doing she could persuade him to remain with her and not to fly off to Iddesleigh.

  ‘Was there any message about who was responsible?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘No, sir. They didn’t know.’

  ‘Have they had the coroner?’

  ‘I don’t know. They should have.’

  ‘True. So when was this news brought?’

  ‘Last afternoon. Edgar told me to mount and come here as soon as he heard. I had to stop the night at Crediton and came on at first light,’ Wat said.

  ‘Good,’ Baldwin said. ‘And what else did Edgar want you to say?’

  ‘Nothing. Only that he would be packing and leaving for Iddesleigh this morning. He’ll meet you there, Sir Baldwin.’

  ‘I see.’ He stood deep in thought. ‘Wat, you must ride for Lydford and see whether Simon’s there at his house. I don’t think he will be, but it’ll be a good ride for you from here. If he’s not there, go to Tavistock to the abbot, and tell him what you’ve said here. The good abbot will send a messenger on to Simon at Dartmouth, if he’s there.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Wait! First take some rest. You must be exhausted. Have some ale and cheese while a horse is prepared, then take a loaf and some meat to pack in your bag. And Wat!’ Baldwin reached into his small purse and pulled out a penny. ‘Well done for coming here so swiftly.’

  While the boy was taken away by the milkmaid to be shown where the pantry was, Baldwin waited for the inevitable argument. When there was no comment, he tentatively cleared his throat. ‘I am sorry, my love, but I have to …’

  ‘Of course we do.’

  He blinked. ‘I think I should go alone.’

  ‘With your wounds unhealed? That would be most intelligent, husband. If you fall from your horse between here and Iddesleigh, whom will you expect to find you and bring you home?’

  ‘It is a long road, my sweet.’

  ‘Many are, my love. Which means we should pack. I shall see to it.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘You should eat something too, if we’re to set off as soon as we can,’ Jeanne said firmly, and was gone.

  Humphrey was feeling as though his back was soon to break when he stopped his work and stood slowly, rubbing at the muscles above his buttocks.

  There was too much to be done, that was the trouble. Old Isaac had many strips of land in the communal fields, and all had to be tilled. For Humphrey, that meant more work. He had to look after the fields as well as taking the services for Isaac. There could be no leisure for a parish priest. He was another local farmer, just like all the others, and like all the others he must work if he wanted to eat.

  Today he was in the strip nearest the road. All the villagers had strips in this great field, and all were widely separated. This was the first of the priest’s strips, and his next was way along there, ninety yards or so. Each strip was over an acre, too, so that the amount of land available to each inhabitant of the vill was quite large. Not as fruitful as some places Humphrey had seen, it was true, but it wasn’t as desolate as others, either.

  When he looked up, there was a man walking along the roadway, a cheerful-looking friar, with a smiling face, flaming red cheeks, and that appearance of drawnness which so many friars wore.

  They were a scavenging breed, the friars. As Humphrey knew only too well, they were detested by many in the Church, and with good reason. Friars would take the money which parishioners should give to their own church; they offered mild penances when they heard confessions, penances that could do little good to the poor soul who had confessed and whose very leniency must devalue the whole structure of the Church’s efforts to prevent sin. In any case, making confession to a wanderer whom a man would never see again was easier, and thus less morally efficacious, than confessing to a priest with whom the penitent tilled the soil, ploughed, drank and ate. There was shame and embarrassment in admitting a sin to a companion, whereas a friar … a man could admit anything to one of them and forget it in moments.

  Humphrey knew all the arguments against friars. He had heard Isaac rehearse them often enough. Right now he was only glad that Isaac was not here to see the scruffy fellow passing by.

  ‘God grant you peace,’ he said when the friar came closer.

  ‘God’s blessing on you,’ the friar responded.

  Now that he was closer, Humphrey could see that he was still less prepossessing than he had originally thought. Humphrey didn’t recognise him, which was a relief – that could have been embarrassing … As it was, it was annoying to have to stop his work to offer hospitality to someone whom he did not wish to entertain.

  ‘You are far from any main roadway, Brother,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, I wander where God wills it,’ the friar said. ‘I am called John. I had thought to stay in this area and preach a little. Father Matthew thought it would be all right?’

  There was a question in his voice which Humphrey could not miss. It was, in truth, a generous question. He had no need to request permission, and this John would have been well within his rights to go wherever he wished, preaching every hour of every day, if he so desired; but there had been friction for some years between Holy Mother Church and the friars, and it was good that this one at least appeared keen to avoid arguments.

  Humphrey shrugged a little gracelessly. ‘Brother, if you wish to do so I wouldn’t stop you, but I am only a coadjutor here. The priest himself is … not well.’

  The friar’s face grew grim. ‘It is good to see an assistant helping an older man. Is he very ill?’

  ‘He is. But it is age which ails him. I have heard it said that he has lived here as priest for nearly three and forty years, and from the look of the records in the church, that could be correct.’

  ‘Do you think that my presence could offend him?’ the friar asked tentatively. ‘I should prefer not to preach where my words could upset a sick man.’

  ‘That is very kind of you, Brother. I think,’ Humphry said consideringly, ‘that if you preach away from the church here, and not right in front of the alehouse at the top of the road, you will be unlikely to cause him offence.’

  ‘He spends much time there?’

  ‘It is easier for me to leave him in the alehouse than alone in the church while I do the work.’ Humphrey shrugged. ‘I prefer to know that he is safe. If he were to remain in the church all day, he might fall and harm himself.’

  ‘You are a good man, my friend,’ Friar John said. ‘And now, if you do not mind, I think I should seek out the tavern – not to preach, but to beg a little bread.’

  ‘Brother, if I had anything with me, I would …’

  The friar held up his hand. ‘Friend, please. I would not impose further upon you. No, I shall go to the tavern. No doubt they earn enough to subsidise a poor wanderer without harming their own pockets! Where is this place?’

  Humphrey gave brief directions, and then smiled and nodded as the man carried on his way towards the vill of Monkleigh. He watched until the friar had disappeared round the bend in the road and was hidden by the trees.

  ‘Some wandering preacher?’

  Humphrey felt the breath catch in his throat, and he spun on his heel, his
heart thundering. ‘Pagan! In God’s name, man, where did you come from?’

  ‘I was going to the inn to buy a barrel of ale. Why?’

  ‘You half emasculated me, man! Walking up behind a fellow like that …’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Permission to preach. Nothing more.’

  ‘You should be wary of such men. No good comes of having those preachers wandering about the place,’ Pagan said.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘When I was young, they found a friar who’d killed a young boy. He claimed the protection of the Church, of course, but we all knew what he’d done.’

  ‘I hadn’t heard of that,’ Humphrey said.

  ‘Before your time. If you have a man like that about the place, there’s no telling what might happen.’

  ‘It can scarcely be worse than it already is,’ Humphrey said. ‘Had you not heard about that poor man up east of Iddesleigh, with his wife and child?’

  ‘I’d heard. And there is still Lady Lucy of Meeth. No one knows where she is.’

  ‘So one friar can hardly do much harm,’ Humphrey said.

  ‘A friar can always cause more harm,’ Pagan said, and he looked at Humphrey with what appeared to be a cold challenge in his eyes that made Humphrey feel quite chilled. ‘I would have thought you’d know that.’

  Late that night Perkin and Beorn met at Guy’s house.

  The weather was bitter, and all three were glad of the fire crackling merrily in the hearth. They squatted on their haunches, holding their hands to the flames. Today they had been working on the manor’s land, and all were desperate for refreshment.

  Guy was married with four children. He had been lucky, and ever since the famine he had waxed wealthy. His strips produced a good crop each year, and so far he had been able to feed all his family without too much difficulty. Last week his wife had brewed a fresh barrel of ale, and the others were here to test its quality. It was commonly agreed that Anne was one of the best alewives in the county, so all three of the men were keenly looking forward to sampling her brew.