He stood and continued his aimless wandering. The idea of soldiering was not one that attracted him, and not only because his sedentary lifestyle unsuited him for the rigors of fighting. He had an aversion to the principle of making an oath to obey the orders of an earthly baron now that he had enjoyed serving an Abbot.
Another sudden noise drew his attention. There was shouting and banging coming from near the market. His feet had brought him back to the road that led westward from the town, and he gazed one way and then the other, undecided. There was a temptation to leave Tavistock behind, to simply disappear and seek his fortune, whatever it might be.
But he couldn’t. He had nothing—no money, no job, no enthusiasm; he had truly lost everything. There was nothing for him to do, nowhere to go. He felt utterly alone. Whereas he would gladly have given up his vocation to wed Avice and would have been content to live with her in poverty, her rejection of him was so total and uncompromising he felt that there was little reason for him to carry on living.
His head dropped to his chest and he walked miserably toward the town and back to the Abbey. As he approached it, he saw a little crush of townspeople, some waving sticks and broken pieces of wood. From this distance, it could have been a group of merry-makers, but even as he looked, he saw youths picking up stones from the roadside and hurling them at the Abbey’s gates.
Quickly he turned his steps away, back up the hill toward the fairground.
Behind him he heard a shout, and when he looked, he saw some figures hurrying after him. He took to his heels, his heart pounding. All too often the townspeople enjoyed ridiculing the young novices when they had a chance, but this was no party in the mood for fun. This was a mob in search of victims.
Before him he saw another black habit, and he sped toward it. Glancing behind, he saw that his pursuers were gaining on him. Panting in the heat, he picked up the hem of his habit and pelted after the other brother.
18
When her daughter walked in, Marion laid aside her work and studied her. To her chagrin, she was aware of a sense of pride in the way that Avice held herself. Her carriage was as haughty as Marion’s own, and her regal entry, ignoring her parents and walking straight to a bench and sitting, was a masterpiece of contempt.
Arthur for his part was sad to see her so openly mutinous. His daughter, whom he adored with all his soul, for whom he would gladly lose an arm if it would make her happy, was treating him with as much respect as he would give a beggar in the street. And all because of that Venetian. He sighed, and threw a glance at Henry, who stood by the wall. The groom was indifferent; he had performed his duty as he saw it, and was waiting to provide the necessary evidence when called.
There was no gloating in Marion’s voice, only calm sympathy. “Avice, we wanted you here because we have been finding out what we can about this swain of yours. This Pietro da Cammino.”
Avice looked up and met her mother’s gaze. “And what have you discovered?”
Her father glanced at Henry once more. “Avice, his father is negotiating with the Abbot, but there are other things you should know.”
“I assume this is your spy—let him speak!” Avice said, staring at Henry.
The groom winced. He’d expected this duty to be painful, and his young mistress was not of a mood to ease his task. “Miss Avice, I did go and try to find out what I could, not because I want to upset you, but because I wouldn’t want you to be unhappy.”
“Hurry up, man! She wants to know what you’ve found,” Marion snapped.
“The father and son are staying with the Abbot while they conduct business with him. They say they are wealthy, but others think they aren’t. It could be that they are trying to con the Abbot out of his money.”
“Rubbish!”
“Their horses are of poor quality—how many wealthy men would tolerate ponies like theirs?”
“Maybe their own horses went lame.”
“Perhaps. But some say the boy is dangerous. He drew a knife against the man who died near the tavern. Some people think he was the murderer.”
“Some ‘people’? Which people?”
“Among them, monks.”
Avice’s mouth fell open with dismay. “But, how?” she said, then rallied. “If a monk thought that, he would tell his Abbot, and the Abbot could hardly let a man suspected of murder stay as his guest. I don’t believe you!”
“Avice,” her mother protested, “Henry wouldn’t lie to you.”
“He would if he thought you wished him to. He would if he thought you were determined to see me unhappy for the rest of my days and married to John.”
“Mistress, I have not invented this. It’s what I heard a monk say.”
Suddenly her voice sharpened. “A monk—or was it a novice? Was it the boy who asked me to run away with him? It was, wasn’t it? It was that fool Peter!”
“Who it was doesn’t matter, girl,” Arthur rumbled, but she ignored him.
“That’s all the evidence you can collect, the jealous, unfair and biased view of a boy who wants me himself so much he’d perjure himself to his God! Yet you can’t prove Pietro isn’t rich! That he and his father are guests of the Abbot must mean that Abbot Champeaux himself thinks them honorable, and yet you are prepared to spread malicious lies just to convince me I’m wrong—well, I won’t listen to this. I know what kind of a man Pietro is, and I will marry him.”
“You can’t, Avice. You will wed John,” her mother reminded her.
“I will not. I have been a dutiful and obedient daughter, but I will not agree to this. It’s my life, and I would prefer to go to the cloister than harness myself to John until my death.”
She swept to her feet and flounced from the room.
Arthur shook his head. “Not the result we desired.”
“She will come round,” Marion said, but with more confidence than she felt. “Henry, tell Avice’s maid to come and see me right away.” When he had left the room, she continued: “Arthur, until this nonsense is finished, Avice must be confined to the house. We cannot have her wandering where she will with this Venetian vagabond. Who knows where her folly might lead her?”
“Oh, very well,” he said and stood.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to the tavern. I’ve had enough of all this.”
“You don’t mean you support her in this capricious flouting of our will?”
“Your will, not mine. All I want is to see her happy.”
“So do I, Arthur. I simply do not believe she will be happy with this boy.”
“Perhaps, but right now, I don’t know that she can ever be happy with John either. You call it capriciousness, but I wonder whether it is equally capricious to wish on her a marriage with a man whom your daughter finds contemptible.” And before she could answer him, he had left the room.
Outside the house, he reflected a moment. His words would have hurt his wife, but he could not regret them. She was waging a vendetta against the boy based on her own desire for Avice to marry into a knightly family. It was a natural enough wish, he acknowledged, but he would prefer his daughter to be happy rather than trying to force her to begin a dynasty. He hesitated, then made off down the hill toward the tavern. If he could not find peace in his own house, he would seek it elsewhere.
They were gaining on him. Peter was convinced he was about to be attacked, and his flesh cringed at the thought of what the youths would do to him when they caught him.
The monk heard the noise, too. Seeing the baying mob, he ducked sideways into an alley. Peter saw him disappear, and marked the spot. Panting, he ran close to the buildings at the side of the road. If he could just get to the alley, he might be able to follow the other monk without his pursuers seeing him.
He didn’t recognize the monk—he was too far off, but Peter wondered whether it was one of the lay brothers. There were so many who labored in the fields, or kept the smithy and mill working, Peter could not remember them all. The figure of this one l
ooked familiar, but he could not place him.
Coming level with the alley, he risked a glance behind. The bend in the street hid the mob from view. He nipped in, only to meet a man stepping out. In one hand he held a black habit, bundled loosely. In the other was a heavy stick.
Peter stared. “What were you doing wearing that?” he demanded, but he saw the man heft his stick, and the monk retreated, his eyes fixed on the cudgel with horror. Hearing a shout behind him, he spun, just in time to see the jeering pack running past. Suddenly he was less scared of them; suddenly they looked like his protectors, and he opened his mouth to shout, but before he could, he was yanked backward into the dark maw of the alley. The youths ran off up the hill, oblivious to Peter’s panicked defense.
The fire smoked badly in the tavern, and Arthur coughed when the fumes got to him. It made a change for him to drink ale, and he enjoyed two quarts before deciding he should make his way home. He settled with the alewife and began the walk up the hill to his house, his cheerfulness fully restored. Surely it would all work out all right—they would soon leave Tavistock, and Avice would be away from the malign influence of the Venetian. Maybe she would even come to like John after all.
His wife was not so wrong, he thought with alcoholic optimism. It was right that she should want the best husband she could find for her girl, and although John was ugly and less prepossessing than an ape, he did have the attribute of breeding. It was merely a pity that Avice was too young to see that. She would come round—probably, he amended with a burst of realism.
The street had cleared, and he could see a group of cheerful boys waving sticks and shouting. The sight made him a little nervous. Youths these days so often seemed prone to violence at the slightest provocation, and it was not unheard of for a man to be attacked merely for glancing at a lad. He kept his eyes steadfastly fixed to the ground, walking faster as he passed beyond them. Further on, his steps faltered at the sight of a familiar figure.
Pietro was lounging on the opposite side of the road from the house, staring at the window of Arthur’s upper rooms. His attitude was that of a man who has made a purchase and is waiting confidently for his servant to bring his bauble to him. Arthur’s sense of well-being evaporated as if driven off by the breeze that gently shivered the flags in the street. The alcohol which had filled him with happy contentment now fuelled his anger.
The arrogant puppy! What nerve, to blockade his house like this. It might be the way to steal a man’s daughter in his own barbarian land, but Arthur would be hanged rather than let him win over Avice by such overt means.
“What are you waiting for, sir?”
Pietro spun around, shocked out of his pleasant reverie. He had been trying to compose a poem to Avice—he couldn’t run to a tune—and had forgotten that here he would be on plain view to all. At first he could only gaze in astonishment at the furious merchant. Arthur was bristling like an angry terrier, and Pietro half expected to see his hackles rise and hear him growl.
“Well?” Arthur hissed. “Do you expect me to call Avice and have her tossed to you like scraps to a wolf? That’s what you look like, an evil predator who would rend my daughter from her family. You have disordered the peace of my house, upset my daughter, possibly harmed the match between her and the son of a knight, and dismayed my wife. And now you have the bald nerve to stand at my door as if you have the right to expect that she should come to you.”
“Sir, I only hope for a glimpse of Avice, that is all,” Pietro protested. “I love her—”
“Love! You’ve no idea what the word means. If you loved her, you would let her marry the man to whom she is betrothed, and stop worrying her! She will marry a squire. Are you a squire? John belongs to an ancient family, he’s related to an earl—are you?”
“Sir, my father is prosperous, and he can—”
“Prosperous? What is money to me? I have money and to spare, I have no need of money.”
Pietro could feel his face reddening under the onslaught. It was not that the abuse was unjust; on the contrary, the man’s concern was all too well-justified, especially with his own father’s lack of money.
“And where is the proof of your affluence, eh? How can I trust your word?”
He could not. That was the rub. Pietro and his father had been forced to scrape along for quite some time now.
“Avice will marry a man who can provide for her, a man who will have a decent horse and the money to keep it, a house and servants, with land enough to ensure she will always have food,” Arthur thundered, “not some jackanapes in fancy clothing with a broken-down pony!”
Pietro winced and stepped back. His retreat fired a cruel pleasure in Arthur’s breast. With inebriated enthusiasm he followed the dumbstruck lad like a fighting knight who sees his opponent falter.
“I do not believe that you and your father are genuine. I think you are shams—fakes—and I shall warn the Abbot that you are trying to defraud him.”
Arthur saw with anger that the lad didn’t even try to defend himself. Anyone accused of such crimes should instantly deny them, but this fool was taking every word as if they were all true…all true. Arthur gaped. Until now his words had run away with him; he had intended only to persuade Pietro that he was not welcome around his daughter, but this lack of defense must mean that his suspicions were closer to the mark than he had thought. If this was so, the Camminos were worse than even Marion had assumed.
He needed say no more. Pietro threw him a look in which loathing and fear were commingled, then turned on his heel and stalked off toward the Abbey.
One thought was uppermost in Pietro’s mind. Avice had promised she would go with him, but if she heard Arthur’s accusations, would she change her mind? At the least she would doubt him. Pietro gritted his teeth. He wouldn’t—he couldn’t—let her hear what her father believed. She would never look at him again.
Yet he couldn’t just run away to elope with her. His father would never agree. No, he must stay.
He had come to this decision when he rounded the last bend in the road, and saw the mob at the gates to the Abbey.
Abbot Champeaux had spent much of the morning in the Abbey Church with the people who wanted to make offerings at the shrines to St. Rumon and the founders of the Abbey; he still had many other duties to attend to. There were the alms to be given, and not only food, because five and twenty years before, he had assigned money to buy shoes and clothing for the poor. The almoner had purchased a quantity of cloth for those who could not afford it, and money and bread must be given to the lepers in the maudlin, the only benefit to them of the fair since they were outlawed for the duration. It was all a heavy drain on the Abbey’s resources, especially the eight bushels of wheaten flour which would be cooked into loaves for the poor and the wine which would be drunk by all the monks. Abbot Champeaux sometimes felt that the most important thing in his life was money. It guided his thoughts almost every hour of the day.
When he first heard the shouting, he thought it was just the noise from the fair borne on the wind. It was only when it grew loud and he heard anxious cries from inside the court and the ponderous creak and slam of the great gate that he hurried out.
Lay brothers stood wringing their hands as he approached. “What is the meaning of all this noise and disturbance?” he demanded.
“Father Abbot, there is a riot!”
The Abbot closed his eyes for a second. Other abbeys and priories had suffered mutiny, but he had never expected to have one here. Tavistock had always been treated leniently by him—his taxes were fair, his demands few. There was no reason for the townspeople to revolt. “Do we know why?”
“No, Abbot. The mob just appeared at the gates, demanding the Venetians.”
Champeaux gazed at him blankly. It seemed incomprehensible that the town should have taken against the Camminos. Walking to the Court gate, he went to the wicket and pulled the bolt back. When a monk ran to prevent him, he gave a curt order to leave him alone. Hiding was no wa
y to stop a rabble. Throwing open the door, he walked out.
It was only a small gathering, he saw, maybe forty all told. Some held clubs and sticks aloft, but more gripped jars of ale or wine. They had been shouting and making threats, but as he appeared, the noise faded. Those at the front were slowed and went quiet at the sight of the most powerful man in the town. When he glanced round at the faces, most of them red with ale and heat, none of them would meet his eye. They gazed at the ground and shuffled.
Gradually the atmosphere changed as those at the back of the mob realized something was happening. The rowdy chanting became a sequence of shouts, and then a general mumbling. Soon that ceased, and the road was engulfed by stillness.
“My friends, what are you all doing here?” he asked quietly, and in the silence his voice carried clearly and echoed back from the houses opposite. “This is the Feast Day of St. Rumon—the Abbey’s saint, and yours—and you come here drunk, yelling and cursing as if you wish to pull down his own sacred shrine. Do you think your saint would love you and protect you as he always has done if you were to desecrate his Abbey?”
“We wouldn’t do anything against St. Rumon,” someone called, and the Abbot peered through the crowd, trying to see who it was.
“No? But you come here, armed with cudgels to beat at his door.”
“Only because they locked the doors against us.”
“What else could they do? What would you do if an armed mob appeared at your door—invite them in? Come, what is the point of all this disturbance?”
At once many voices were raised, and the Abbot could hear nothing. He held up a hand. “One at a time, please! Now—you, you tell me what this is all about.”
The man he pointed to, a miner, met his gaze resolutely. “Abbot, we know you’ve got Venetians with you. They’re known to be criminals, felons. We came here to demand that you throw them out.”
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