‘A message …’ Simon mused, his eyes narrowing as a thought came to him.
Baldwin peered with keen interest. ‘You are sure? He was attacked the very same day?’
‘Yes. A party of men went to Robert’s house in the late afternoon. It was the very day that Adcock arrived to replace Ailward. They rode off as Adcock got there, and forced Robert out before setting light to his house. Your man died later that night, so far as I can tell.’
‘Why attack my man?’ Simon asked. ‘What would be in it for this man Geoffrey?’
‘He wants more lands for his master, I suppose. The more he has, the better it reflects upon him, and the more authority he has himself.’
Baldwin and Edgar exchanged a glance. ‘That makes some sense,’ Baldwin said slowly. ‘But we have heard this from many others in the area since we arrived. Is there no one else who could have a desire to take lands? Or is it possible that someone could have wanted to attack Hugh and his family with a view to making everyone think that it was Sir Geoffrey who was responsible? There are too many possibilities.’
‘I don’t know. All I can say is, it fairly shook me to my sandals to see that poor woman in the bog up there – and the knight was remarkably keen to get her out of sight. I’ve never seen a woman like that … soaked in black water … poor woman!’
‘What of the dead sergeant, this Ailward? What can you tell us about him?’ Baldwin enquired.
‘He was a hard taskmaster, but a bailiff has to be, doesn’t he? Sergeant or bailiff, it’s all the same thing. They are there to make the land pay for the lord. The vill has to have enough food to live on, but all the rest is for the lord, and sometimes it’s hard. Ailward was a brawny fellow, fast with his fists or his staff, but to his credit, I think he was a kindly soul to those who actually had little. He talked hard, and sounded a cruel fellow, but if a peasant needed money, he would lend it. His wife adored him.’
‘How long had he been sergeant?’ Baldwin asked. He could sense that Simon’s ire was rising once more, but he shot his friend a look that made Simon half turn away.
‘Since before I came here. Some while as a bachelor, more recently as a husband. I understand his family used to be wealthy, but then they fell into …’
‘Yes?’
‘Well – disgrace. The war two years ago. When the king won, there was nothing left for Ailward. That is what I have heard.’
‘Another family ruined,’ Simon said bitterly.
‘Where do they live?’ Baldwin asked.
As the waves of nausea rolled through him, starting from the pit of his belly and rumbling upwards, Adcock rolled out of his cot and fell on to the floor on all fours, retching.
The pain was exquisite; quite unlike anything he had experienced before. He felt as though his ballocks were going to explode. This was no simple, geographically isolated ache, it was all-encompassing, from his knees to his breast. It felt as though he was one whole mass of bruises from his chest to his thighs. Walking was impossible. Sitting on a horse with this tenderness was unimaginable. All he could do was crouch, choking with the fabulous anguish that brightened and flared from his groin. His head fell to the floor, for his entire soul was dragged down to his ballocks, and nothing else mattered.
‘You still lazing about?’
Adcock didn’t hear him the first time. He was entirely concentrated on his wounds, and it was only when Nick le Poter gave him an ungentle push with his boot that Adcock collapsed, weeping with the torture of it, his eyes still firmly closed. He opened them when the waves had subsided a little, and looked up to see his fresh tormentor.
‘So, you’ve learned what our mad master is like, have you?’
Nick was still unable to pull a jacket or shirt over the lacerations on his back, and he must continually move his muscles to ease the itching as the bloody scabs tightened and the scars formed. At least the worst of the actual searing sensation was gone now. One day of grief, and it was more or less all right. He’d suffered worse.
Adcock whispered. ‘I think I’d guessed already.’
‘He’s off his head. You upset him, did you?’
‘All I did was do my job. There was a mire out on the Exbourne road. You know the one? I had it drained, that was all, but in the bottom there was a dead woman.’
‘What?’
‘Someone from Meeth – Lady Lucy? She was only young, but she’d been tortured. Even I could see that, and I know nothing about death. She had great welts on her where someone had burned her, I think.’ He winced.
Nick saw his expression, his mind racing. ‘And we both know who could do that to someone, don’t we?’
Jeanne accepted the wine from Jankin with a graceful inclination of her head. Emma was starting to get dozy, she could see. The maid was looking about her belligerently, like an old hen who had mislaid her corn and thought one of the cockerels in the run might have stolen it. Soon, like a hen, she appeared to forget all about them, and instead sank back on her stool, resting her back on the wall behind her and grumbling to herself.
The trouble which Jeanne had so often tried to explain to her was that, when complaining about a hostelry, it was usually best to wait until she had left the place. Emma was notable for many things, but the subtlety and moderation of her voice were not among her attributes. It was as Deadly Dave reappeared, apparently glad to have escaped from Jeanne’s husband from the glare he threw her as he stood in the doorway, that Emma began to make her feelings known.
‘Look at this place. Little better than a sty.’
‘Emma, keep your voice down.’
‘Why? No one would hear me here. Anyway, I doubt any of them would want to dispute it. Look at the state of the place! And the men here. Look at them. As ungodly a mob as I’ve ever seen. Only that one’s moderately clean. I can see why Sir Baldwin chose him as a guide. I can tell you, mistress, I’ll be glad to be back home at Liddinstone.’
‘Moderate your tone,’ Jeanne commanded urgently.
‘We’re only here to look after Sir Baldwin, after all. And he’s gone off on his own already. What’s the point of our being here?’
Jeanne clenched her jaw and, as Richalda mumbled in her sleep in her lap, took a moment to force her voice to calm. At last she said, ‘Emma, Sir Baldwin is safe because he has his servant Edgar and his friend Simon with him. I need not fear his falling from his mount into a ditch while there are two strong men at his side. However, he needed us on the way here. And he needs us to be here when he returns, not lynched because …’ she lowered her voice to a malevolent hiss, ‘because you insult all the people of this good vill. You will be silent!’
‘Harrumph! Don’t see what you’re so upset about. It’s not like the little family up the road were close to you, is it? That scruffy tatterdemalion Hugh was ever a foolish little man, you used to say.’
‘Perhaps I did on occasion,’ Jeanne said with spirit, ‘but I never took pleasure in denigrating him like you, and I would prefer not to hear any more insulting words about him now the poor man is dead.’
Emma snorted and gazed about her once more, her small eyes seeking fresh amusement. ‘Shame about his wife. Her being a nun and all.’
Jeanne winced. She could almost hear the necks creaking as all the men in the room turned to stare at the two women. ‘Emma, be silent!’
‘Why? She was a nun. Don’t you remember? Hugh met her at Belstone, and she …’
Jeanne leaned forward and removed her cup of wine. ‘You have had enough.’
‘But I haven’t finished it!’
‘I think you have!’
Emma sank back and sulkily cast an eye about the room again. ‘Look at this place! What do you want?’
This was addressed to a boy who, intrigued by the conversation which all had heard, was leaning round to peer at Emma from between two older lads.
‘You stick to your drink and leave two ladies alone,’ Emma said haughtily.
‘Was it true?’ called a man from the bar ne
ar Jankin. ‘Was she really a nun?’
Jeanne glared at Emma, but failed to catch her maid’s attention.
‘Yes. Of course she was. Poor chit, she won’t have a chance to confess her sins now, will she?’
‘Shouldn’t have buried her, should you, Matthew?’ said another man. ‘If she were a runaway, she shouldn’t be put into the churchyard, should she?’
‘Specially if she had a bastard!’ another called. ‘She had a boy, didn’t she? If she was a bride of Christ, that lad was a bastard. Stands to reason.’
Matthew cast a look at Jeanne in which several emotions were mingled, and Jeanne held her chin up with a supercilious look in her eye. She would not have Hugh’s wife’s memory impugned. ‘Yes?’
‘May I speak with you a moment, my lady?’ he asked, slipping from the bar and crossing towards the door.
Jeanne remained seated for a moment or two, before nodding and standing, gently shifting Richalda to her shoulder. When Emma moved to join her, she hurriedly held out her hand and shook her head. ‘You wait there,’ she commanded sternly. ‘And this time keep silent, as I said. I don’t want any more trouble!’
Emma glanced about her with a slightly curled lip.
‘Not much chance of me causing trouble in here, is there?’
Hugh left the house for a moment, wondering how well his leg was healing. To his surprise, it held up well as he crossed the ground outside, and he felt a sudden burst of confidence. He would be able to use it, and that meant he could seek to avenge Constance. It was all he wanted.
She had been so good for him. He’d learned the delights of family life, the joys of a home filled with the sounds of a child at play. Resting before his fire, his exhaustion seeping away, the glowing flames warming his face after the chill of the wintry wind, he had known real happiness. It was a strange sensation, one he had never fully experienced before.
The worst of it all was this feeling of guilt. If only he had returned to the house earlier and not dallied at the hedge, perhaps he could have saved her, protected her from the attackers. He could have done – he should have done; he should have been there for his woman.
He could feel the hot tears of frustration and rage prickling again. The idea that she died alone, crying for help while …
But he was not so far away that he could have missed her screams, surely? She had a good voice, and when she scolded her son Hugh could usually hear her from up in the field. Yet that day he had heard nothing. She must have called for him, though, because she must have known that no one would go to her rescue if she didn’t. Constance was no fool. She must have realised that Hugh could have heard her if she had cried out. He wasn’t that far away. She knew that.
Surely, though, he must have heard her screaming.
Suddenly Hugh tottered. He had to reach out an arm and support himself against the wall. As his legs weakened and he slowly sank to the ground, he felt the sobbing start again deep in his breast.
If he hadn’t heard her, it was because she had not called for him. And she hadn’t called for him because she didn’t want to have him there to witness her shame. Or, worse, because she didn’t want him to be hurt. She had kept quiet as the men took her and killed her, accepting her fate while her man worked so near. She had died quietly so that he wouldn’t himself be hurt.
He covered his face and tried to keep the sound of his heartfelt weeping as quiet as possible.
John found him there later, his arms outstretched against the wall like a man on the cross, his eyes cast up to heaven; a man who sought for help in his despair.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jeanne was quite prepared for a fight. There was no priest alive who could scare her. She knew too many good men of God to be fearful of a fellow like this, a lowly vill’s vicar. If Matthew had been bright enough to have any prospects of enhancement, he wouldn’t be here in this little parish. He’d be in Exeter with the bishop, or studying in a university.
He stood waiting outside, and when Jeanne saw him he glanced at the inn, then beckoned her to follow him.
To her surprise he did not walk to his church, over to the right. Instead, he led her down the left-hand track to the roadway, and then further eastwards, along the path towards Hugh’s burned-out house. When he reached it, he stood with his hands tucked in the sleeves of his robe against the chill.
‘Father?’ Jeanne prompted.
‘When I came here, I was only very young,’ Matthew said inconsequentially. He was gazing about him at the place, almost as though he had forgotten that Jeanne was there with him. ‘At the time this was the home of the manor’s cowherd. He was a good, bluff man, old Sandy. Named for his hair, he was. Quite a yellow-golden colour it was, although by the time I came here it looked as though the colour had been washed out. He was an old man. His wife had died a long time before, although I can’t remember why now. Sandy did tell me, but whether it was a fever or an accident, I can’t tell. There have been so many deaths since I first came here.’
He looked back at the building. It was a sad sight. Once it had been a thriving place, with the cowherder coming home at the end of his day to see all his children running towards him, his wife perhaps in the doorway, wiping her hands after her day’s work: looking after the children, cleaning them, washing soiled clothing, cooking … and he would be exhausted after working in his fields or seeing to his master’s herd with his oldest boy. It was a life Matthew could understand. His own father had been a cattleherd.
‘Do you think that the house will be rebuilt?’ Jeanne asked, seeing the direction of his gaze.
He sighed. ‘I hope so. It’s dreadful to see a home broken down like this. Shocking somehow to think that it could be so easily destroyed.’
‘Surely someone will see the walls and put up a new roof. There are not that many spare plots with good walls.’
‘I shall see whether I can persuade Sir John Sully to restore it.’
Jeanne frowned. ‘Wasn’t all this land owned by the prioress of Belstone?’ The prioress had given this little holding to Constance, she recalled.
‘It was, but over time much land has been sold to support the priory in its trials. The priory has little money, and must shift for itself most of the time. I’ve heard that this holding was sold off some eighteen months ago. The prioress retains rights to the church and to some of the land, but mostly Sir John Sully is responsible now. I shall have to tell the prioress what has happened, though. The poor woman. She had been a nun, you know.’
Jeanne smiled sadly. ‘Please tell the good prioress that Constance is dead. But be in no doubt, the prioress knew of her and released Constance herself. She had been made to swear her oath before she was old enough. And when she fell in love, her prioress was kind enough to remind her that her vows were not valid. It was the prioress who gave her this land, and when Hugh joined her she was no nun.’
Matthew searched her face with a narrow-eyed intensity, but at last he drew a huge sigh of relief and gave a small smile. ‘That, my lady, is a great weight from my mind. I dislike the idea of punishing the dead, and in all honesty I didn’t think that the child could have been so sinful as to have renounced life in a priory. She seemed too good and kind to me. I had feared when I overheard your maid that I had married a woman who was already betrothed to Christ, and the idea terrified me. If you are sure that …’
‘Write to the prioress. She will be pleased to confirm that I am right.’
‘That, then, is one problem out of the way.’
She glanced at his face. ‘You still seem perturbed, Father. Is there anything I can help you with?’
‘No, I think not.’
‘Are you worried that you might have to explain to the men of the vill about her?’
‘I shall have to explain to them that she was no nun. That will please many of them.’
‘But something is yet worrying you?’
He smiled wearily. ‘There is always something to worry a man when he has several hundr
ed souls to protect. But yes, if you will have it, there is one thing: I am perturbed that poor Constance could have been killed because a man desired her.’
‘And who could that have been?’
‘There are many men in the vill, but I do not think it was a man from here.’
‘You think that they are all uniquely good?’ Jeanne asked with a raised eyebrow.
He grinned at that. ‘No. I have my share of cowards, bullies and evil ones. But I find it hard to believe that any of them would dare to risk Hugh’s revenge, and still fewer would dare to risk their souls by murdering both of them and their child.’
Jeanne saw no reason to advise him that the child was not Hugh’s. It would unnecessarily complicate matters. ‘So who?’
‘There is one man …’
He stopped and stared at the ground at his feet, uncomfortable. Then he looked up again and met her gaze resolutely. ‘I was worried about a runaway here because I feared that this woman could be the second in the vicinity.’
‘There is another?’ Jeanne gaped.
‘I believe so. The coadjutor at the chapel at Monkleigh.’
‘I don’t understand – you mean that he is about to run away?’
He showed his teeth again. ‘No. I mean that he already has. I think he was a friar, and now he’s arrived to take advantage of a rather foolish old man, Isaac the priest.’
‘What has alerted your suspicions?’
He shrugged. ‘Little things at first. When he arrived, his hands were clean and not horny. They had never seen hard labour. He was clearly a man who had spent his time in a cloister or scriptorium rather than a field. Yet he told me that he had run his own parish church with his own glebe. That was plainly untrue, for he knew nothing of farming. The vill’s men had to help him with everything. I was concerned when I heard that and other rumours, concerned enough to contact a friend at Exeter. He deals with diocesan matters, and I asked him what he could tell me about this Humphrey.’
A Friar's Bloodfeud: (Knights Templar 20) Page 23